Locus Amoenus
by afinemess5
Summary: A surprise from CC's past disrupts Niles and CC's lives.
1. 1

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, though my heart would love to claim them. I receive no compensation for using their likenesses.

Locus Amoenus

1.

"Bloody American feast," Niles muttered to himself as he clattered the roasting pan back into the oven. He tipped the oven door closed and swore when it fell back open. "_Make a full Thanksgiving feast, Niles_. _No, we don't need a new oven, Niles_. _Of course you can cook everything in one oven and have it ready by dinner. Just manage your time, Niles_."

He closed the oven door successfully, turned around, and groaned when he saw CC standing on the other side of the island with her eyebrows raised.

"I suddenly understand why the holidays are a time of increased suicide," she remarked.

"A natural result of people seeing your face?" Niles guessed.

CC glared at him. "I thought you could use one of these," she held up two bottles of beer, "but if you're going to have that attitude…"

"No, no," Niles said, mollified by her kindness and the idea of alcohol. "If I don't, you'll just drink it all and ruin Thanksgiving dinner."

CC popped off the top of both beers and handed him one. "You even managed to turn a kind gesture on my behalf into an insult used against me. Here's to the holiday spirit."

"Here's to a terrible Thanksgiving," Niles toasted, clinking his beer against the neck of her bottle. Niles made an appreciative sound after his first sip and looked down at the bottle. "Hm. My favorite."

CC resisted the urge to tell him that she knew it was his favorite as he turned back to the stove and stirred his caramelizing onions. "So why the hate for Thanksgiving?"

He turned from the stove and sat down at the kitchen table where she had just sat down as well. "Contrary to most American's beliefs, we Brits _don't_ celebrate Thanksgiving, you know."

"Contrary to most Americans, I actually _had_ a real education. I know that," she replied, rolling her eyes. "But you've been here long enough. Holiday spirit hasn't infected you?"

Niles put on a faux-thoughtful face. "No, it hasn't. Perhaps when I got immunized to you, it also made me immune to holidays centered around a feast which I have to spend all day preparing and get no time to enjoy."

CC pouted. "Poor Niles." She tipped her bottle back and took a generous sip. Niles watched her throat work, her soft pearls contrasting beautifully with the brash beer. He resisted the urge to tell her how beautiful she looked with her hair in soft waves and a black sweater hugging her curves.

"Look at it this way," she suggested, leaning back against the kitchen chair, "the Fines will be here this year. So even if you screw a dish up, they aren't likely to notice since they'll just swallow the food whole."

Niles laughed, pointing the mouth of his bottle towards her. "Great point."

"And no matter what you do, you won't impress me," CC reminded him.

"Another great point. Pressure's off," Niles said, loosening his tie. CC gave him a genuine smile, hoping it would mask her thoughts which were currently swirling around the idea of grabbing his tie and pulling him towards her. Niles's next question snapped her out of her reverie. "Why are you here this year? No ritual sacrifice with your family?"

CC winced. "The one who's usually sacrificed is me." She spotted the look of confusion on Niles's face and continued quickly, "But no. My father's in France with his latest cliché of a girlfriend. My sister's there too, but I doubt they're spending time together, and my brother's stuck at Northwestern with midterms or something."

"What about your mother?" CC shrugged and Niles didn't press. "Well, we're glad to have you." At CC's cocked eyebrow, Niles amended, "We're glad to have your dog here."

CC nodded. "That sounds more right."

Later that day, a ravenous CC sat at the long table near the end. She tapped the tips of her fingers against her knee, wanting more than anything to dig into the plate of food before her. So, naturally, Nanny Fine proposed every person at the table go around and say what they were thankful for this holiday. She zoned out as Sylvia listed her fifth favorite bakery and didn't return to the conversation until she heard her name.

"Ok, that's everyone. Let's dig in!" Maxwell announced.

"You forgot CC," Grace pointed out, her voice raised to be heard above the din. Sylvia paused with a laden fork poised near her mouth.

CC looked around at everyone staring at her. Her eyes settled on Niles's face, which looked like it was fighting back laughter. "I'm thankful that you all almost forgot I was here so I didn't even have to make something up. Cheers!"

The hungry Fines and oblivious Sheffields (except perhaps Grace, who fleetingly gave CC a sympathetic look) began eating straightaway. CC spotted Niles slipping into the kitchen with a full plate and looked around for a few moments. It was not likely that she'd be missed. Grabbing another slice of turkey and one more roll, CC quietly left the table with her plate and walked into the kitchen.

"Mind if I join you?" CC asked, setting her plate down in the same spot from earlier.

With a full mouth, Niles pushed the seat out in response. She settled down and began eating. "You didn't want to eat with a crowd?"

"Please. Yetta was explaining in painful detail about her latest hemorrhoid," CC said. "The conversation devolved from there, if you can believe it."

"Then I, for one, am thankful for a hemorrhoid-free Thanksgiving," Niles said.

CC nodded and swallowed a particularly large bite. "I lied earlier. I am actually thankful for this delicious food."

"Step up from Alpo, huh?"

CC looked at him. "The second time you've ruined something nice I was about to say."

"You're right, you're right," Niles allowed. "Ok. Go on complimenting my fabulous cooking."

CC eyed him appraisingly. "All right. Just because I'm in the holiday spirit. This is a wonderful meal."

"That's it?" Niles said, deflating like a balloon.

"Do you do things for the gratification of a job well done or for praise, Niles?"

"Praise, obviously," Niles replied dismissively.

"Then I regret to inform you that you chose the absolute worst employer, then," CC pointed out.

"I didn't exactly choose him, but it's another good point nonetheless," Niles agreed. "Now let's get back to this 'praise' we were discussing."

"With all this discussion, now it's cold. So I have nothing good left to say," CC told him, dramatically pushing her food around her plate with the fork.

Niles slumped his shoulders and looked so dejected that CC laughed and reached out, resting her hand on top of his. Niles stopped himself in time from automatically turning his hand around and locking his fingers with hers, but only just.

"I'm kidding, you big baby butler," CC said. "I've had a lot of Thanksgiving meals, but this is the best I've ever had." She added a quick squeeze to his hand and then brought it back right away. Both immediately missed the warmth.

"The _best_ you've ever had, you say?" Niles asked in a teasing tone before eating some mashed potatoes.

"Oh, the _absolute_ best," CC said. "It'll keep me satisfied for _hours_."

"You bet, baby," Niles replied, his voice dropping low and mingling just enough truth in it to make CC wonder, not for the first time, exactly what they were playing at.

CC cleared her throat and took a sip of her water. "You'll have quite a clean-up on your hands." She'd intended to change the subject, of course, but Niles broke into laughter and CC couldn't resist doing the same.

The rest of the meal passed in easy conversation, and by the time their plates were empty, Max and Fran walked into the kitchen hand-in-hand. If they were surprised to find Niles and CC eating together, neither said anything.

"Niles, we were thinking of having dessert in the living room. It's a bit cozier in there," Maxwell told him.

"Of course, sir," Niles said, standing up and following the couple out of the room. CC's heart dropped a little at the _sir_, at the automatic supplicating way in which Niles uttered it. It had always been difficult, even from the first time she met Niles, for CC to reconcile the quick-witted, articulate man she talked to with the servant of Maxwell Sheffield. Something didn't add up for her, and she often felt annoyed when Niles reacted in ways that screamed _butler!_ to her.

She followed everyone into the living room, settling herself on the corner of the piano bench which had been relocated next to the overstuffed armchair. She watched Niles hand a plate of pie to Fran, who asked for a bigger piece. Niles didn't remind her that she'd just loudly announced, several times, that she couldn't possibly eat another bite. He passed out a plate to each person in the room, remembering without asking which pie was their favorite. It occurred to her the silly hypocrisy of her situation: she cringed in irritation at the type of servitude required to remember what Fran's father's favorite pie was, even though he wasn't a regular visitor to the Sheffield home, and yet it made her nearly giddy that he remembered what her favorite foods were.

Niles reached her last, offering a plate of homemade apple pie with a dollop of whipped cream, and she wondered if he had intentionally brushed his fingers against hers.

She had just pushed her fork through the flaky crust when the doorbell rang. Niles set down his own untouched plate and walked to the door. CC looked up in interest and her heart dropped to a thud at her feet when she saw the person on the other side of the threshold.

The considerable sound around her dissolved into a whir of noise in her ears as she experienced a sort of tunnel vision focused on the front door of the mansion. She saw Niles turn back to face her, saw his lips form the words "Miss Babcock?" with his face forming the question mark. She set down the plate of pie and it would strike her, moments later, how she did not remember and would likely never remember where she had set the pie down. On the floor? Did she reach for the coffee table? Did someone reach out and take it from her?

"CC, hello," the man said when CC reached the front door. CC saw how Niles still stood close to the door and didn't step back and aside like a good butler should.

"Hello," CC returned, or thought she did. It was quite possible that her mouth had turned to gravel and her voice had turned to vapor.

Fran, who had noticed this time that Niles and CC had disappeared from the group, craned her neck around and spoke, her voice finally piercing the bubble of disbelief that had protected CC from all that had just happened, was happening, and, CC knew without a doubt, would happen. "Who's your friend over there?"

"Oh, pardon me for not introducing myself," the man said again, his confident yet friendly voice revealing years of money, comfort, and education of the sort that did not solely occur in school. He extended his hand and walked over to Maxwell, who had stood up, this mysterious man recognizing another man whose aura exuded years of money, comfort, and education.

"I'm Andrew Wilcox," he said with a smile, shaking Maxwell's hand, "CC's husband."


	2. 2

[A/N: A huge thank you to the kind reviewers who don't mind my attempt at the oldest trope in the books. Hopefully this chapter will answer some of the questions you have.]

2.

CC brought her knees up to her chest and rested her head against the wall, glancing out of the bay window in her bedroom. She'd neglected to turn on the lights anywhere in her penthouse, so only the stars and the moon gave any illumination to CC's troubled face. Her apartment was silent, save Chester's soft breathing and the ice cubes in her glass.

Her husband. What a joke of a word, devoid of any meaning to her. The word clearly meant a lot more to some of the other people in the Sheffield home—Fran, Maxwell, even the kids. And Niles, of course. Niles, whose face had remained slightly bemused but otherwise blank, as though someone had recently told him some information that he found vaguely puzzling but was otherwise indifferent to. She'd had no idea how to process that, but in her defense, she didn't know how to process much of anything since she'd abandoned her pie.

The homemade pie with the homemade whipped cream. It had looked so appetizing. Why hadn't Thanksgiving ended right there?

She swirled the vodka in her glass, more comforted by the feel of it in her hand than actually drinking it. Resting the heavy bottom of the glass against her collarbone, tapping her pointer finger against the glass, she considered the rest of the afternoon as though it had been a slightly interesting television show she'd watched: sliding around Niles to grab her coat, scooping up Chester and escorting Andrew back outside, distractedly asking Andrew what he was doing there, barely listening as he'd explained his father's business concerns and CC's own mother's urgings, finally and weakly accepting his request for lunch the next day, gratefully finding her car keys in her pocket, driving back home.

This wasn't some long-lost returned love, not some regretted betrothal to her high school sweetheart. She'd first met Andrew 18 years ago, when she herself had been 17 and eagerly looking into colleges. It had been her father, not her mother, who had invited her into his office and sat her down and spoken to her like an adult for the first time in her life. It had been this, more than any of his placating justifications and logical reasoning, that had convinced her to agree with him before fully understanding what she was agreeing to.

Not unheard of were arranged marriages in CC's social strata—though they weren't _called_ arranged marriages, of course. Such an antiquated word choice. Nevertheless, that's what it was, essentially—a marriage brokered between his father and hers, strictly for business and financial reasons. Even at 17, a marriage and a family hadn't been her concern or dream: she had her eyes on a bigger prize. First college, then MBA, then CFO of Babcock, Inc. So if she had to marry this Andy kid to solidify the profit margin and ensure fiscal stability for the rest of the century, and impress her father with her steadfast commitment and dedication to the family company, what could it hurt?

Funny how that question came up years later, though CC still wasn't keen to try to answer it. Agreeing to her father's proposal—business proposal, that is—had ensured that the unhappy rumblings about college she'd heard from her mother were instantly silenced. The day after her 18th birthday, she had slipped on a white satin gown and met Andrew Wilcox for only the third time. After a few fed lines, he was her husband.

A few months had passed, she'd gone off to Bryn Mawr, and as the years passed, she had conveniently forgotten that she'd ever been married. Relationships had reminded her of the fact that she was legally spoken for, especially if they'd appeared to grow serious, but nothing had lasted beyond several months and it never became an issue.

Inadvertently, Niles flashed into CC's mind, his brow slightly furled. Had he looked like that after Andrew's announcement, or did CC misremember and add concern where there was none?

She sighed and wished she'd paid more attention to Andrew's explanation of why he'd shown up on Thanksgiving, of all days. How had he even known to look for her at the Sheffield's? Perhaps her husband knew her better than she thought. She laughed at this and sipped her drink.

A strange and sudden urge to call Niles and find out if his face had crumpled a bit in confusion, concern, hurt (?) that afternoon hit her. She let this notion sit in her mind for a while before she saw the clock and figured he was probably asleep after all the work he'd done that day.

Niles was not, in fact, asleep, although his entire body ached with exhaustion. He had already attempted to fall asleep twice and knew it would not come easy tonight.

After Fran's family had gone home, Max, Fran, and the children had remained in the living room and discussed almost nothing else but CC's surprise husband. Niles had listened in, idly gathering dishes and piling them on the minibar. By Fran's fourth "Are you _sure_ you didn't know she was married, Max?" Niles had exited to the glorious silence of the kitchen, completely forgetting the dessert dishes.

He'd occupied himself by scrubbing the roasting dish and cleaning the counters. The entire kitchen gleamed but Niles still pretended to be busy when Fran came in, knowing she wanted to gossip about it with him.

Surprisingly, she'd shown a conscientiousness Niles hadn't known she'd possessed and had simply asked if he was all right before telling him she was going to watch a movie in the living room with the kids and that she was there if he needed any help.

Niles wondered what he'd looked like when Andrew had introduced himself as CC's husband. He had a feeling that Fran, after her jaw had dropped, had snapped her head to look at him. He remembered only shock, but a distant kind of shock, as one who heard that a little-known relative had unexpectedly passed away.

The shock had grown more pronounced as Niles considered what happened after. CC scooped up Chester and left the house, her husband—her _husband_—in tow. Niles wondered what she was doing; he wouldn't quite allow himself to consider using "they." Still, he resigned himself to the small comfort that CC hadn't actually greeted Andrew in any way: no touches, embraces, kisses. In fact, she had looked more shocked than anyone else in the house.

His thought loop settled back into its origins and he wondered, for the twentieth time, why Andrew had returned—for he'd presumably been away and hadn't been living with CC this entire time—and what he wanted from CC.

Niles settled back against his pillows and laced his hands together behind his head. For a fleeting, bizarre moment, Niles wanted to hop out of bed, grab the keys, and go to CC's penthouse, demanding answers. It was after midnight, yes, but for some reason, he thought CC might still be awake.

Still, he had no right to do so. He had no right to so much: he couldn't feel offended that CC had never told him she was married; he was not allowed to go see her without a pretense besides wanting an explanation; and he had no claim on any sort of actual relationship with the blonde socialite. The mysterious husband in the crisp Armani suit and the well-styled hair did.

Niles sighed and rolled over onto his stomach. He would stake a claim into his right to sleep, determined, but it, too, would prove to be another thing out of Niles's control.

With a rush of cold air, CC entered the Plaza Hotel. Unfurling her red cashmere scarf, she made her way towards the Palm Court. Andrew stood, smiling amiably, and at his cheerful friendliness, CC's stomach sank again. She wondered if it would take up permanent residence in her feet.

"Good afternoon, CC," Andrew greeted.

"Hello, Andrew," CC said, stiffer than she would have liked. A server materialized and took her coat and scarf, sliding out a chair for her. CC sat down and Andrew followed suit. She immediately wished they'd gone to an establishment with larger tables. The setting was undeniably intimate.

"First, let me apologize for showing up unannounced at your…business partner's, correct?" Andrew guessed.

"Yes," CC asserted. "How did you know I'd be there?"

"Your mother suggested it," Andrew explained. "I tried your penthouse first."

CC nodded. Her mother. Of course. None of this would end well, she suddenly realized. "Andrew, pardon my bluntness, but why are you here?"

Andrew opened his mouth to explain but paused as another server produced water and a basket of bread. CC declined anything else to drink and then looked at Andrew expectantly. "Well, it would appear that my father is approaching retirement and this complicates a few things for our…agreement."

CC smirked at him. "Such as?"

A third server arrived and CC ordered the prawn salad. She glanced at the ostentatious decoration of the Court as Andrew ordered. Her eyes traveled back to his face as he resumed his explanation.

"Our arrangement still remains lucrative for both sides, of course, but Father is rather worried about the…longevity of such a proposal," Andrew explained.

"Spit it out, hubby," CC said.

Andrew sighed. To his credit, he appeared as reluctant to say what CC dreaded to hear. "A meeting has been suggested to iron out some new details."

CC raised her eyebrows. "_New_ details? Wasn't the-the contract all I had to agree to?"

"I'm not sure. We were 18, CC. I can't imagine we inspected the document too closely," Andrew replied, sipping his water.

CC took a piece of bread from the basket and tore it into small pieces. The open, airy court felt oppressive. "When is the meeting happening?"

"I'm not sure. My father only suggested it recently," Andrew said carefully.

CC rolled her eyes. "My mother sent you to surprise me on Thanksgiving. When's the meeting?"

Andrew sighed. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" CC repeated, the remaining hunk of bread falling harmlessly to her plate. "Your side must be pretty concerned."

"There was some push from your side, too," Andrew said, a hint of irritation coloring his tone.

"All right. What happens if I don't attend the meeting?" CC asked, an urge to rebel replacing her suffocation and providing blessed relief.

"Then you probably get no say in the outcome," Andrew replied with a shrug.

CC neglected to reply that she'd likely have no say in the outcome regardless. Her mother hadn't been involved before, and it concerned her that BB suddenly was now.

Her salad arrived shortly after, and she ate gratefully, not particularly hungry but eager to focus her attention on something else.

"CC, I know none of this is ideal," Andrew said, setting his fork down. "It's not ideal for you and it especially isn't for me. But I don't want you to feel as though I'm not on your side."

CC pushed aside a slivered almond and avoided looking at him. She reminded herself to try to be gracious. "Thank you."

He smiled at her, and she at him, and the rest of the lunch passed somewhat more pleasantly.

Pulling her scarf up to cover the bottom half of her face, CC left the Plaza and began walking down 5th Avenue. She had taken a taxi but didn't yet feel like climbing back into a heavy, musty exterior. She hadn't made it down one block, however, until someone spotted her—or rather, two someones.

"Speaking of heavy and musty," CC remarked as Nanny Fine and Niles stopped in front of her. Both eyed her with interest but, CC suspected, very different kinds of interest.

"Hiya, Miss Babcock!" Fran exclaimed, her voice escaping as a large cloud of vapor.

"Hello, hello," CC replied casually. "There isn't a Loehmann's anywhere around here, Nanny Fine. What are you doing here?"

"It's Black Friday!" Fran said excitedly. "We're shoppin' for deals." She struggled to hold up the numerous bags draped over her arms.

"Hanukkah shopping early?" CC guessed.

"Oh, yeah. I got this for Maxwell," Fran answered, holding up the smallest of all her bags. "The rest are for me."

"Of course," CC replied with a smile. She turned to Niles. "Don't tell me you actually opened your wallet to buy anything?"

"I can only imagine what happened the last time a man opened his wallet for you," Niles quipped back.

CC considered shooting back that in fact, her _husband_ had just opened his wallet to pay for a hundred-dollar lunch…but CC found herself not wanting to use Andrew to wound Niles. Her eyes widened slightly at this revelation. She wondered what it meant.

"What about you, Miss Babcock? I don't see any shopping bags," Fran said in the easy way she had with small talk.

"I don't need to wait for discounted shopping days," CC replied haughtily. "I was having lunch with…" The sentence tapered off, unfinished, but by the looks on both of their faces, CC guessed that Fran and Niles had figured it out.

"Ya husband?" Fran couldn't resist blurting out. Niles and CC both flinched but neither noticed that the other had.

"With Andrew, yes," CC clarified. Her eyes flitted to Niles and for a quick moment, she saw something in his eyes that squeezed her heart to half its usual size. Right then, she wanted to take Niles's arm and pull him away from Fran, take him aside and explain quickly but thoroughly what the truth was—but what _was_ the truth, aside from the facts of her business agreement marriage to Andrew? Why _did_ she want Niles to understand? What _was_ the look in his eyes?

Fran, in another moment of unprecedented empathy, looked from Niles to CC and changed the subject rapidly. "Miss Babcock, you left your purse at the house."

She turned to the nanny. "What? Oh, yes. I'll stop by tomorrow after—I'll stop by tomorrow and get it."

"I bet Niles could bring it by later today—" Fran began optimistically.

"No!" they cried quickly in unison and then wondered why the other was so vehement.

"No, it's fine," CC recovered smoothly. "I'm sure those old bones need a rest after yesterday."

"Ah, Babcock, don't talk about yourself like that," Niles returned in stride. CC smiled slightly and sent Fran and Niles off, hailing and getting a cab in quick succession.


	3. 3

[A/N: Thank you for the kind reviews, everyone. Here is where the chapters start to get a little longer, so I hope no one minds. Please keep letting me know what you think!]

3.

A ray of feeble November sunshine fought its way into the plate glass window but still couldn't compete with the shiny mahogany conference table. CC stared at her glass of water, absently wondering if she shouldn't have some sort of coaster. A small smile crested her face; Niles would be proud to hear her worried about water stains.

Andrew sat across from her on the other side of the table, his besuited elderly father next to him. CC took a sip of her water and noticed the absence of anyone on her side of the table. This didn't bode well.

A foreboding waft of Lady Stetson announced a new arrival, and CC knew that the presence of BB Babcock boded even worse.

"Hello, doll," BB greeted, bending down to kiss the air relatively near CC's cheek.

"Hello, mother," CC replied warily. What did it mean that her father, who formed the original agreement, wasn't here but her mother, who opposed it, was? CC very much doubted that anything would wind up in her favor.

BB walked to the other side of the conference table, teetering on heels CC doubted a woman of her age should wear, and pressed actual kisses to Andrew and Mr. Wilcox's cheeks. Small talk passed back and forth between the groups before BB sat down next to CC and splayed her hands on the table. Heavy gold and diamond rings glittered in the light.

"Let's get down to business, shall we?" BB suggested coolly.

"Let's establish why I'm even here, first of all," CC countered.

BB spared a derisive glance to her daughter. "CC, do be reasonable. Now, Theo, why don't you air your concerns and I'll discuss mine?"

CC listened as her father-in-law, who was apparently named Theo, explained what she already knew: he was retiring, he worried about the continued partnership between Babcock, Inc., and Wilcox Corp. A small feeling of tentative relief began tugging her stomach back into its original place.

"Theo, you're absolutely right," BB stated authoritatively before Theo had even finished his last sentence. "There's no need to question the integrity of a Babcock business deal, of course, but given the very unusual nature of this marriage—they don't even _live_ together, for goodness' sake—your concerns are well grounded. I've spoken to Stuart and I think there's a solution that will please everyone."

BB turned to give her daughter a smile, and it was in this smile that CC realized how foolish her tentative hope had been. It had never been enough, and so it would never be enough, to take away her freedom to choose her own life. Her family would always have to take more.

"I'd love to hear it, BB," Theo said. CC glanced at Andrew and found none of the camaraderie she'd encountered yesterday.

BB clasped her fingers together so that she could separate them to spread her hands wide as she gave her solution, a politician giving resolutions that would never actually touch her life or affect her in any way.

"An heir."

CC pushed into the Sheffield mansion, her fingers grasping the wrought iron for stability. She'd laughed at Nanny Fine's hide-a-key weeks ago, joking that surely Niles, having no life, would always be home to let them in if anyone ever forgot their keys. But now, CC uttered a silent thank you to the nanny. Now, CC could go in, retrieve her purse, and then return to her penthouse and the chilled bottle of vodka she'd left in her freezer.

Following the disastrous meeting, CC had left the office building, jumped into her car, and jetted off. Originally, she'd intended on going to the Sheffield mansion to get her purse and get some work done, but she knew that would never happen when she was in such a state. But the idea of being in an empty penthouse (where her mother would be able to find her) was just as impossible. So CC had settled into a cozy bar she had frequented before, close enough to the Sheffield's that she could walk, and disappeared into the large holiday crowds as she nursed more drinks than she meant to.

Now, the manse was thankfully dark and quiet, everyone retreating to their own rooms, planning the next day or week or year, with no one directing the course of their lives. Lucky ones.

"Miss Babcock?" At his voice, CC started and spun around, losing her grip on the door and stumbling slightly. Niles clicked on the lamp on the side table and looked at her, concerned.

"I-I'm not that drunk," was all CC could think of to say—which was likely the least convincing thing to say when one is attempting to prove one's sobriety. But CC wasn't a stumbler, or a slurrer, or a sloppy drunk. She was a Park Avenue drunk: she just got crueler.

"And Miss Fine wasn't that desperate to marry Mr. Sheffield," Niles remarked.

CC leaned back against the door, the sphere of light emanating from the lap protecting them from the rest of the world. She rarely got to experience Niles like this—almost assuredly free from the family, from eavesdroppers, from people who made it necessary for him to always attack her. These times were her favorite.

"Niles, does it ever bother you that you've known Maxwell your entire life and you still call him 'Mr.'?" CC asked. She'd intended for her voice to be a little sharper but it was smooth at the edges.

"Does it bother _you_ that I still call you 'Miss'?" Niles responded. "Or I suppose I should call you Mrs. Wilcox, right?"

"Hilarious," CC said with a sigh.

Niles eased up in a way he rarely did when company was present. "Did you come for your purse? It's in the kitchen." So that she would most likely see him if she ever came for it, he didn't add.

"I did. But let's have a drink," CC suggested, pushing away from the door and walking (quite steadily) into the living room. "You get my purse, I'll get the drinks."

"Yes, sir," Niles replied. CC laughed as she walked to the minibar and mixed two vodka tonics. She set his on a coaster on the coffee table and kept hers in hand as she sunk into the couch.

Niles returned and tossed her purse to her as he made to head for another lamp in the room. "Don't," CC said. "You're best viewed in dim lighting."

"Oh, how marriage has changed you," Niles tutted as he turned around and sat on the couch a few safe feet away from her.

"That's the second time you've brought it up. Something you'd like to talk about?" CC asked, sipping her drink.

Niles pursed his lips. "Something _you_ want to talk about?"

CC raised her eyebrows and laughed humorlessly. "Niles, you've known me for how many years?"

"Nearly half your life, so I'd guess 45 years," Niles interjected.

"That was rhetorical, jackass. You've known me for 12 years and you found out three days ago that I'm actually married and you have nothing to say? It's like I don't know you at all."

"Like _you_ don't know—" Niles began heatedly, anger at so many things flashing through and disappearing just as quickly. He paused to collect himself. "Well, I don't have any informational questions. I think I've figured that part out."

"Ah. Ok. Enlighten me."

"Some sort of business deal to appease both sets of parents and you thought your job was done when you signed your name on the marriage license, but now one side isn't so happy with it so they want more from you."

"Surprisingly intuitive for a butler," CC granted, tipping her glass to him.

"Thank you. So what more do they want from you?" Niles asked, his light tone hopefully covering the nervousness he felt. What if she left? What if she—

"Kids," CC said blatantly. Saying it aloud blocked out any other possible words so she swallowed a large gulp of her drink. It didn't diminish the ball in her throat but it did chase away her immediate fear that she would start crying.

"_Kids_?" Niles repeated incredulously. He stared at her so intensely that CC turned away. "Well, you can't do that."

"Why not?" CC turned to him.

"Because…you're just too old, right?"

"Niles," CC said quietly. Niles shook his head.

"They can't just dictate your life that way," Niles told her.

"You'll find that they can."

"Why? Will they hold a gun to your head and force you to…"

"No, of course not," CC snapped. "They'll just disinherit me and take away my trust fund."

"Andrew's family has the power to do that?" Niles asked.

"No," CC said, irritated. "_His_ family will walk away from the business deal and cost my father's company millions. _My_ family, in turn, will take that out on me."

"Then walk away. You made millions here, didn't you?" Niles suggested.

CC glared at him. "Such an easy suggestion. Why didn't _you_ walk away from your family when they signed you into Maxwell's service? Why have you stayed your entire pathetic life?"

"That's different. My family's welfare was at stake—"

"It's _always_ different, isn't it? You bow to other peoples' wishes and sacrifice your own life because you're noble but if _I_ do it, then I'm—"

"A high-class prostitute?" Niles suggested. CC's mouth froze in the shape of whatever words she'd planned on saying.

In one movement, CC stood, grabbed her purse, and threw her drink in Niles's face. She hurried past him and towards the front door.

"Babcock, I—" Niles tried. He never got to say what he was; the slam of the front door cut him off.

The next morning, CC slid into the office chair in her penthouse and picked up her phone, dialing Noel's house number.

"Hello, hello?" her brother chirped.

"You jackass," CC greeted.

"C_C_! How are you?" Noel said cheerfully.

"Terrible. Why is Mummy here?"

"Oh. Ah. She's in New York?"

"Yes, Noel. Answer my question. Why is she here, and why did she tell Andrew that I'd be at Maxwell's?" CC asked.

"How is old Andrew? You know, I haven't seen him since—"

"Noel Nathaniel Babcock, I will take the next plane out to Evanston and—"

"All right, all right," Noel said with a sigh. "She called to see how I was, which means she actually called to try to…figure things out about my life, and she asked several questions about Brian and truth be told, these questions were making me rather uncomfortable because I _told_ Mummy that he's my graduate assistant—"

"Oh, Noel, he's been your graduate assistant for eight years. He's either _really_ struggling with that Master's degree or he's your boyfriend," CC snapped, irritated. "You know I know. I walked in on one of your 'research sessions' five years ago."

"Yes, yes, CC, but you know how Mummy is," Noel said.

"Yes, I do." It was CC's turn to sigh. "So you threw me under the bus to deflect attention." This wasn't said with anger but rather pride. This was her brother. This is who they were.

"Of course," Noel replied dismissively.

"But _how_?" CC asked. "What could you have possibly told her to make her want to come to New York demanding heirs?"

"Heirs?" Noel repeated. He cursed under his breath. "Ceec, I didn't mean to make that happen. I just thought she'd call and harass you instead."

"You just woke up the Beast, you aren't responsible for the wreckage it's created," CC said. "What did you tell her?"

Noel paused and CC furrowed her brow.

"It couldn't have been about my stint at the Place. If anything, that should have pleased her," CC said in a lame attempt at levity.

Her brother swore again. "No, but that did come up. I mentioned that Sheffield's butler had been to visit you there and she—"

"You told her that he visited me in the hospital?" she asked weakly.

Noel paused again and CC knew he realized his mistake, that he'd perhaps realized it soon after he'd said it to their mother. "CC, I'm sorry."

"What else did she want to know?" she asked stiffly.

"After I told her, she asked if you and he seemed close, and I—"

CC promptly hung up the phone and put her head in her hands.

Of course, CC thought, it was quite fitting that the catalyst to this most recent event in her life would be Niles, the man who just called her a prostitute and who would never in a million years admit to the world that he and CC were close. But CC knew her mother well—she'd inherited enough of the woman's poor qualities to be able to follow the convoluted and manipulative paths of her mind—and whatever CC claimed and whatever Niles claimed, his visit to her in the hospital spoke volumes. That Noel knew about it added even more information.

And if they _were_ close, if CC ever considered her relationship and her history with the butler long enough to put that qualifier on it, what would it amount to? CC sensed that her mother's sudden arrival in New York served more than one purpose for BB. She didn't just want to remind CC how she didn't control her own future; she wanted to show her daughter the fruitlessness of any relationship with the help, close or otherwise. BB didn't like to use words to teach her lessons; instead, she was a more progressive teacher and liked to manipulate situations so that her pupils would learn the lessons themselves, often in the most painful way possible.

Niles was, after all, the person she'd spend the most time around in the past decade. She thought back to Thanksgiving and remembered the pleasant camaraderie and light flirting. Whatever the nature of her relationship to Niles was, CC did not have the freedom to figure it out.

She remembered the feel of her hand on his and a fist closed over her heart.

She jumped when she heard the phone ring, but she pushed away from her desk and left her office. She had no patience to hear Noel's groveling and apologies. She wasn't _really_ mad at him, not the way she usually got mad at people, but she still didn't feel like talking to the other man who jump-started this entire catastrophe.

Chester looked up hopefully as she entered the living room and she smiled, curling up next to him on the sofa and petting his soft fur. Both looked up, alert, when a knock sounded at the door.

"You expecting someone?" CC asked. Chester looked at her with his big brown eyes and cocked his head. Sighing, CC stood and walked to the door, praying it wasn't her neighbor.

She pulled open the door and smirked when she saw Niles on the other side. "Sorry, hun, but if you want an appointment, you'll have to call Big Papa."

Niles looked for a moment as though he wanted to laugh but he quelled it, not willing to risk it. "I'm sorry, Babcock."

CC paused, looking at him expectantly. After a few silent moments, she responded, "That it? Ok, then."

"No, that isn't it," Niles answered, holding out his hand so that she couldn't shut the door, as she was trying to do.

CC halted her movement and kept her door half-open. "Ok. What else?"

He looked at her and eventually, she broke eye contact to inspect the door frame more closely. As much as she preferred Niles away from other people, often she could not handle more than small doses of him. There was something more poignant, more profound, that she sensed in him, and saw in his eyes currently, that evoked too many things she felt unprepared to deal with.

"Did you come to stare adoringly into my eyes?" CC snapped, her voice purposely harsh. "Just come inside, then, for God's sake." She turned and walked away, nearly tripping over Chester who had followed her to the door.

Niles shut the door and took off his wool coat, draping it over the closet door handle. He watched her turn to face him, crossing her arms. He suddenly found himself nervous—and he wasn't usually nervous around this woman, unless she happened to have a power tool in her hand—and wished he had thought everything through at least one more time. His morning had consisted of making, serving, and cleaning up after breakfast, after which a restless ennui possessed him and refused to relinquish its hold. Guilt, this was the name he'd assigned it.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"Yeah. You said that already."

"Stop being difficult," Niles said exasperatedly. "How many times in the past 12 years have I apologized?"

"Two, including today."

"See? It's genuine. I…I wasn't being nice," Niles finished lamely.

"Oh, well, thank you _so_ much for coming all this way to let me know you weren't being _nice_," CC said, her voice dripping sarcasm like honey. "I _never_ would have been able to figure that one out on my own, since I'm just a lowly _whore_."

Niles sighed. "Does your husband have to put up with this? Or do you two have a _very_ modern marriage and live in separate penthouses?"

"Your jealousy is showing, Niles."

"You're right," Niles admitted. "Andrew does have bloody dreamy eyes. I bet you just get lost in them."

CC felt something like frustration, anger, and hurt form a hot ball deep inside her and she curled her hands into fists. "Isn't it just wonderful, then, how it's _your_ fault he turned up in my life again?"

"My fault?" Niles repeated, confusion replacing the smirk he wore when he played with her.

"My _idiot_ brother told my awful mother that you visited me at the-at the Place and she put two and two together so she decided to show up out of the bl—"

"What do you mean, 'put two and two together'?"

"It's arithmetic, Niles."

Niles rolled his eyes and walked closer to her. "I know that, woman. Why would your mother come here after learning that I'd visited you?"

CC sighed and felt her shoulders slump in a very Niles-esque gesture. "Because she…she figured that we were, I don't know, close, so of course, she can't let anyone actually _care_ about me…"

Niles looked at her closely, and this time, she wouldn't find herself wondering what it was she saw in his eyes: it was as though he'd pulled the blinds up and let his feelings shine through for the first time. The light illuminated the dusty, forgotten parts of her, and whether it was the obvious fact that Niles did care for her or whether it was a combination of all that had transpired in the past few days, CC felt her eyes shimmer with tears.

Niles saw, too, and CC looked down before the sympathy certainly evident in his eyes embarrassed her even more.

"CC…" Niles said quietly. CC shook her head and went to turn away from him, but he pulled her into his embrace and held her tightly. "I'm sorry," he said softly into her ear.

"For the third time," CC said into his collarbone with a watery laugh.

He carefully placed his hands on either side of her head and pulled back so she could look at him. "Not just for what I said. For…well, for everything, I suppose."

CC looked at him and couldn't help but consider what her mother would say when her very intentions to keep Niles away were doing just the opposite. She had been correct earlier: the way things were right now, she absolutely did not have the freedom to figure out her relationship to Niles. But her mother wasn't here; her grip did not extend that far. She had never considered herself very rebellious, necessarily, but at that moment, CC wanted to rebel against each and every agent exercising control over her life, and the conduit to doing so stood in front of her, his feelings plain on his face.

Niles, for his part, had never before wanted to protect CC as much as he did in that moment. There was nothing he could do about her mother, about her marriage contract, about this current situation. But he could comfort her, offer solace, and prove to her that he did care about her just as much as her mother worried he did. And if Niles were truly honest with himself, some proprietary part of his core wanted to claim CC in a way he was almost certain her husband hadn't. And she hadn't pulled away from his embrace.

CC saw Niles leaning forward so she did, too, closing the gap and meeting his lips. She gripped the back of his suit coat as he slid his fingers into her hair, deepening in the kiss. Simultaneously, they stepped closer and pressed their hips together. She moved her hands around, pushing his jacket off of his strong shoulders, suddenly urgent to feel his skin with her hands.

Trailing his hands down her sides and resting in the gap between her shirt and her pants, Niles dug his fingers into her hips as she tugged away his tie and fumbled with the small buttons on his shirt. With a sound of frustration, she broke the kiss and pulled on the shirt, dislodging several buttons and leaving them hanging by strings.

Niles looked down at the vestiges of buttons and looked back up at CC, his eyebrow cocked.

With his chest partially bared and his face obviously recently kissed, CC felt a flush of desire wash over her again. "I'll buy you a new one," she managed to say before crashing her lips against his again, the force of the kiss actually knocking Niles back a few steps. Recovered, he slipped his shirt off and momentarily broke the kiss to slide CC's shirt over her head.

The feel of his hands against her bare back, waist, shoulders nearly made her knees weak. As soon as she realized this, Niles pressed a kiss right near her ear and whispered, "Get ready, Babcock," and placed his hands behind her knees, lifting her up and carrying her towards her bedroom.

He placed her gently upon her bed, using this new position to press kisses to previously unexplored areas of her body, seemingly insignificant parts that had become precious in his imagination: the top of her arm, the expanse of her torso, the small hollow where her abdomen met her hips. Even in the flurry of his desire, Niles took his time, his hands and lips exploring where it was almost too painful for his eyes to see.

CC, for her part, succumbed to the overwhelming yearning that she'd gotten only a glimpse of three years ago with The Kiss in the living room. Only this time, his lips tasted like himself, not like whiskey, and there was almost no chance of Maxwell and Nanny Fine interrupting them. What little part of CC's brain that was still coherent could manage only one thought, over and over: _why haven't we been doing this all along? _

Time sped up—or slowed down, possibly—and in a perfectly synchronistic moment, both were aware of nothing more than the urge to continue. But when Niles tilted her hips and slid into her, he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers, pausing for several moments. In the moments, days, years to come, CC would never be able to fully articulate this moment, but even though she couldn't put words to it, she understood.

That moment eventually passed, and they gave in to their baser urges.

After, CC lay spent against the pillows and Niles sat on the edge of her bed, the remainder of his clothing in a sad heap by his feet. As she slowly regained the feeling in her limbs, CC turned to look at him just as he looked over his shoulder at her. Written all over his face was the universal expression saying, quite plainly, _we shouldn't have done this_.

In an instant, all of her feelings that Niles had successfully caressed away—her frustration, anger, irritation, deep-seated hopelessness—surged through and threatened to drown her. She wanted to kick him out of her bed, literally, and scream at him to leave; she felt the scream bubbling in her throat, blocking out anything else, but she bit it back and felt her face harden.

"I should go," Niles said, feeling every bit like the coward he was. "The family will be expecting their lunch."

CC looked at him coldly and it seeped into every fiber of herself: her rough edges turned to daggers of ice and her eyes to ice chips. She hated being reminded that she'd just had sex with a butler, a man so subservient that he'd leave her naked in her bed to go fix his master lunch. "Then go."

Niles sighed, his shoulders slumping, and CC felt even more disgust course through her. Had he wanted her to fight for him? Didn't he know that wasn't who she was?

On the other side, a side that now felt miles and miles away, Niles asked himself those same questions. Though he knew the absurdity of it, part of him _did_ want her to fight for him, to somehow make up for the lie that they had ever stood even the smallest chance of being together. It was a lie he had believed in with the optimistic naiveté of a child, but it was a lie she had apparently always known to be one. She was married, and she wasn't brave enough to do anything about it. He knew that. Had he expected an hour of sex—admittedly damn amazing sex—to change her, the stubborn tower of Babcock?

He stood, pulling on his clothing, and watched in the periphery of his vision as she pulled a blanket to cover herself up. He spared one more look of disappointment about her, himself, them, before he turned and left her room, closing the door quietly behind him.

After CC listened carefully to the front door closing as well, she grabbed the crystal vase from her side table and hurled it at her door. It shattered loudly, gratifyingly, and CC felt a kinship to the vase as it scattered to the ground in shards of unrecognizable pieces.


	4. 4

[A/N: Thanks to all the kind reviewers. It means a lot, and it encourages me to continue writing for the three different fic ideas that cropped up while I wrote this story. I didn't rate this story M, but there is an instance of language later in this chapter that I trust my readers are mature enough to handle. But still. I thought I'd warn you. There is also an occurrence, or near-occurrence, at the end of this chapter that might trigger some folks so please be forewarned. I do promise that there is a method to my madness and that there is a plan for this story.]

4.

A week had passed in relative normalcy, with perhaps Niles being more evasive and CC being more brittle, but the Hanukkah/Christmas spirit had infected the Sheffields and they, as usual, did not notice the misery of their butler and the business associate. Being determined to avoid everyone, CC found it surprisingly easy to stay out of the mansion for large chunks of the day, and she wondered, not for the first time, if she had actually found reasons to work in the home instead of work demanding her presence there all these years.

Aside from avoiding Niles, however, she also sought to avoid Maxwell and Fran, wanting less than ever to discuss her fraud of a marriage. Her mother had been relentlessly phoning her, wanting to discuss the latest "contract negotiations," but CC had been avoiding her too.

CC tried once more to call her father, who appeared to be taking an extended holiday in France, before succumbing to her mother's request of having lunch on Friday. She arrived at the Sheffield's, luckily entering the mansion without notice. Pausing outside of the office, the silence within told her that Niles wasn't inside, so she entered and greeted Maxwell.

Lucky, too, that Maxwell wasn't much like his wife and so had little desire to discuss CC's surprise. He knew a few things about how much pressure family can put on a person, and he suspected that _that_, and not a secret lover, was the root of CC's marriage. He also understood how uncomfortable it was to discuss private matters, so he simply asked CC a few things about their latest production and then left her alone to work.

Without Fran or Niles to distract them, CC and Maxwell made quite an efficient team. The lack of Fran made sense when the office phone rang and CC heard Max talking to his wife on the other end of the line. She began packing up her bag and grabbed her coat, deciding to grab a bottle of water when Maxwell mentioned to Fran something about Niles being out.

She set her bag and coat on the kitchen table and had just opened the sub-zero when she heard the back door open. She heard the feet freeze over the threshold and knew that it was Niles.

She had just decided to grab her things and leave when Niles shut the door behind him and said, "We'll go to the poor house trying to keep you fed, Babcock." He sighed inwardly. It was a weak insult, he knew, but the reason was simpler and much more complicated: he missed her.

CC turned around, gripping a bottle of water, and smirked. "I guess it takes a more competent hand to satisfy me, then."

Niles raised his eyebrows. "Good thing your husband is made of money, then. Even if he looks like he's made of little else."

"Still aren't over it, are you, Niles?" CC asked, moving over to her possessions in case she needed a quick exit.

"It's a little jarring to realize people have been keeping secrets, that's all," Niles said. CC paused, not knowing what to say. She considered for, she realized with a hint of shame, the first time how Niles actually felt about her "secret," aside from jealousy.

"I…I didn't think of it that way," CC told him, her face troubled.

"No, you wouldn't, as it would require you to consider things outside of yourself," Niles explained.

This insult rang a little too true. CC stood awkwardly, fiddling with the strap of her bag, alternately wanting to apologize and demand an apology for his behavior the previous weekend.

Niles vacillated between a few of his own desires, the least of which was to beg her to prove that the idea of them wasn't actually a lie, however remote of a possibility it truly was.

As usual, though, these two people with so many ties in different directions found themselves once again unable to follow the one that led them to each other. Instead, CC realized she needed to leave to be on time for lunch and Maxwell came on the intercom, asking if Niles was back yet.

With twin sighs, Niles left the kitchen and CC slid on her coat, following in Niles's tracks.

CC stepped into the Russian Tea Room, irritated with her mother because she knew her daughter would hate the venue. Faux elegance taken over by its real purpose as a tourist trap. BB sat at the back, near an expansive window, like a queen very much disappointed in her subjects. She took a deep, bracing breath and walked towards her.

"CC, doll, is traffic bad?" BB asked in ringing tones.

CC slid off her coat and handed it to a waiter. "It's downtown Manhattan, mother. Traffic is always bad."

BB laughed with very little mirth. "Of course. I was just wondering why you were late."

"It's 12:02," CC gritted out.

"Don't grit your teeth like that, darling, you're not a cow," BB told her daughter.

Another waiter arrived, setting down two glasses of wine.

"I ordered a pinot noir. It's from that adorable vineyard we visited in the Rhone Valley, remember?" BB asked with a smile.

"You went on that trip with DD," CC reminded her, "and I prefer white."

"No need to be rude, dear," BB said, waving off the waiter. CC reached for the bread basket and BB pulled it away and handed it to a passing waiter. CC raised her eyebrows and stared at her mother. "Women in this family can't handle carbs well."

CC seethed, marveling at how effectively her mother was able to transform her into an insecure teenager, still seeking her mother's approval. Yet another waiter set down two identical plates of tuna nicoise and CC couldn't help but laugh.

"Is this an exercise in how little you know me?" CC asked.

BB cut off a small bite on her fork and shook her head. "DD loves this dish."

"That's really fascinating information, mother. Here's more: I'm not DD," CC told her.

"Of course you aren't. DD married well without my intervention," BB said dismissively. She went to spear a small potato and CC pushed her plate aside, nearly knocking it off the table.

"We can't handle carbs, remember," CC reminded her mother sweetly.

BB laughed a tinkling, fake laugh that raised the hairs on CC's arms. "I'm not a Babcock woman, dear. I was referring to the women on your father's side."

"Why are you here, mother?"

"This is one of the finest restaurants in the city," BB replied, brushing imaginary lint off of her Chanel suit.

"That extreme exaggeration aside, I didn't mean _here_ in the restaurant. I meant in the city overall. Why did you come back?" CC asked.

"Truthfully, dear, I was a little worried about you."

CC raised her eyebrows and quelled the urge to laugh again. Here was a new tactic.

"After last year's _debacle_, I knew you were in a fragile state but goodness, CC, cavorting with the help? Didn't you outgrow that yet?" BB asked, replacing her plate in front of her and going for another bite of tuna.

CC's plate sat untouched, cooling and becoming less appealing by the second. Fascinating that her emotional breakdown was a debacle, and just as fascinating that her mother chose not to worry about her until _now_, months later. "Your concern is touching. I'm not _cavorting_ with the help." CC remembered Niles taking her earlobe into his mouth and prayed she didn't blush.

"CC, please, your brother told me all about it," BB said dismissively. "And I have to say, I'm surprised—"

"What do you mean, _all about it_? There's nothing to tell," CC lied smoothly.

"Please," BB snapped, her fake amicability gone. "That butler and Noel are the only people who visited you in the hospital. I know how your brother feels about you," BB continued, her voice hostile as though the thought of her two children getting along personally affronted her, "so I can only imagine what you've done to make the butler feel that way."

"He was just being a decent person—which I realize is a difficult concept for anyone in this family to grasp, but—"

"That's all? I received several calls congratulating me about your Broadway Guild award two years ago, and so many asked about my daughter's _charming_ date. How embarrassing do you think it was for me, CC, to realize he was a _butler_?" BB asked.

CC smirked at her mother. "Well, you know how I love to make people talk."

BB smiled at her daughter as she sipped her wine, a smile so snakelike in appearance that CC instantly regretted going on the offensive in this lunch. She poked the bear, and now the bear was going to destroy everything. Again. "You do. Then I must admit, I'm surprised that you continue to spend time with this man, when he is so clearly determined to run through the women in this family."

CC prepared herself to argue that she didn't spend that much time with Niles, another lie, when her mother's last comment brought her up short. "What? What do you mean, _run through the women_?"

BB put on a look of surprise, but the grin beneath it told CC that she knew her daughter didn't know whatever she was talking about. "Your cousin GG, dear. The butler slept with her when she replaced you at Sheffield's company."

CC stalked through the alley at the back of the house, entering the Sheffield manse through the back door. She slammed it behind her, watching Niles jump and splatter tomato sauce across the stove.

"Thanks, Babcock," Niles said, sucking the sauce off of his thumb and setting the wooden spoon back in the pot. "Is that how you were taught to enter a house in obedience school?"

CC threw her purse and coat on the island and stepped heavily around to his side. She grabbed the front of his shirt and angrily spit out, "You slept with her?"

At Niles's look of confusion, CC released his shirt with a noise of disgust. "Don't talk to me about _secrets_ when you slept with her."

"Who?" Niles demanded.

CC grabbed the dish towel hanging on the oven and threw it at him hard. "You've got sauce on your face. And _you know who_."

"I clearly don't."

"Who's the last woman you had sex with, Niles?" she snapped.

"You!" he exclaimed.

She blushed slightly but wouldn't be deterred. "And before that?"

Niles thought back and then dawning comprehension came over him. "Oh."

"Oh," CC echoed. "_Oh_. You talk to me about _secrets_ when you've been going around, sticking it in any Babcock you can find."

"Excuse me?" Niles said. "My 'secret' is only several months old when you're nearing your twentieth wedding anniversary, if my calculations are correct."

"You don't even know. I don't even remember half the time that I'm married, but every time you look at me, you…" CC's voice tapered off. Her entire life, her family had been comparing her (unfavorably) to GG. Where CC was tall, GG was more petite. Where CC was round, GG was diminutive. And now, when it counted, where GG was first, CC was second.

"Try the opposite," Niles snapped, understanding the thoughts swirling in her head. He shook his head. He had very little desire to revisit the time in his life when she was away, when he missed her so surprisingly much, when his longing was irrevocably tinged with guilt, when the CC strapped to the bed barely resembled the beautiful, lively woman he knew, when he would (and did) take any solace that momentarily distracted him from his worry.

"She's my _cousin_, Niles," CC said, her voice more plaintive than she wished.

"You have no idea—" he began.

"What you were going through?" CC guessed, and he saw her fury mounting. "What _you_ were going through, making cakes with an unflattering picture and sending cards with insults and whispering jokes in my ear?"

"I was just trying to-to bring some normalcy to your life," Niles explained lamely. It had seemed fitting at the time, but Niles understood how it all looked to CC now.

"By fucking my cousin?" CC snapped harshly. Niles winced. "Of course I absolutely understand why _you_ needed some comfort at such a trying time for you. Why, compared to my medication fog and electroshock therapy, I was on vacation while you were really struggling."

"That isn't fair," Niles said. He held up a placating hand, staving her off for a moment. "I know it was worse for you. I can't imagine. But _you_ can't imagine what it was like…seeing you like that." His face clouded and CC felt, for a moment, sympathy for him—until she pictured GG writhing beneath him.

"And you can't imagine living it," CC told him.

"Can't you, for one second, stop looking at me like I'm the enemy and consider the fact that I care about you?"

CC tried—for her credit, damnit, she tried—but she weighed the evidence and Niles almost always came up short. He visited her, yes, to tease her. He slept with her and then instantly regretted it. CC saw no way around these obstacles. There, waiting on the other side, was Niles, but CC's view remained blocked.

"You never told me, CC," Niles said sadly. Her eyes flicked up to his. "You're married, and you never told me."

"You slept with a younger, thinner version of me," she shot back. "While I was-while I was…" Her eyes slid away from him as she imagined Niles doing what everyone else did: comparing her to GG and finding CC lacking.

Niles shook his head and repeated himself. "You have no idea."

Her anger, momentarily gone, ricocheted back and slammed into her chest. "_I_ have no idea? You—"

"You're married," Niles said to her. He carefully controlled his voice, but it still strained. "I never stood any real chance with you, and you knew it, and you never told me."

CC stopped, dumbfounded. Not many things knocked CC Babcock speechless, _truly_ speechless, her brain unable to form words. But this did.

From upstairs, Niles and CC heard Margaret calling out for him. CC opened her mouth to say something, likely something about GG, and Niles knew it. He reached out quickly, grasping both of her arms above the elbows and pulling her against him. CC gasped unintentionally.

"Why don't you ask your cousin whose name I said in her ear that night," Niles whispered harshly into her ear. He pressed such a quick kiss to the space before her ear that in the rush of activity, she couldn't tell if he'd actually kissed her or not. He released her as quickly as he'd grabbed her and went up the back staircase to find Maggie.

By the time Niles had returned, CC was gone and his tomato sauce had congealed to a thick blob stuck to the bottom of the pot. He turned off the stove and threw the pot into the sink as hard as he could.

That evening, CC wrapped herself in her warmest, fuzziest blanket and lay on her couch, the television turned up loudly enough to drown out any sound, even her thoughts. Chester, offended by the noise, trotted out of the living room and disappeared down the hallway.

The television effectively captured her attention during the shows, but she wavered during the commercials and invariably returned to her starting point: _I never stood any real chance with you, and you knew it, and you never told me_.

CC recalled just last week when she realized she had no freedom to explore her relationship with Niles but now, she realized that Niles was a step ahead: he'd figured out what he wanted from the relationship and had even hoped that a future was possible.

But things were seldom so simple for CC, and her mind usually tended toward the pessimistic side. So she burrowed further into her blanket cocoon and waited for a more reasonable time to go to bed.

Still, CC drifted off and found herself rattled awake when Chester's high-pitched barks pierced through her blanket bubble. Confused, CC sat up and found Chester bouncing around the front door as he usually did when someone knocked. She stood up and moved towards the door, tripped over her blanket, righted herself, and walked to the door.

When she glanced through the peephole and saw Andrew on the other side, CC allowed herself to admit that she was disappointed it wasn't Niles. She supposed he was hiding at the Sheffields, nursing his pride. She unlocked and opened the door, offering Andrew a guarded smile.

"Good evening, Andrew," CC said before wrinkling her nose. He reeked of alcohol in the way that CC associated with fraternity brothers.

"There's my wife," Andrew slurred, lurching forward and, it seemed, aiming for CC's lips.

Her eyes popped open and she hopped out of the way in time. Missing his target, Andrew stumbled into the penthouse. After a few failed attempts to steady himself, he finally stood up and gave CC an easy smile.

"We can play hardda get if you wanna," Andrew said with a drunken shrug.

"What's going on?" CC asked, her voice suffused with a sigh.

"Juss thought we should make that heir like we have to," Andrew suggested.

CC thought if she sighed any harder, her body would lose all oxygen and she would shrivel up like a raisin. "Andrew, just leave. I'll see you at the next business meeting."

"Speaking of business," Andrew said brightly. "I had drinks with my father this evening."

"Fascinating."

"And he reminded me, he reminded me, you know?" Andrew said, gesturing emphatically to CC. CC nodded along, wondering if she could call security and have him removed from her penthouse. "I'm your _husband_."

"I'm aware."

"No, but, yeah, I'm your husband, right, and I'm a _man_ and I have _rights_, husbandly rights which have never been exercised," Andrew continued, nodding to himself.

"Maybe in Victorian England, yes," CC snapped. Why had she answered the door? She looked longingly at her blanket. She jumped when she felt Andrew's hands on her shoulders. "What are you doing?"

"The things they say, it's just…is just so mean," Andrew continued, the conductor of his train of thoughts helplessly drunk too.

"Just go home, Andrew," CC said, pushing his hands off of her. He grabbed her shoulders again and leaned forward, his lips touching her cheek when CC turned her head at the last minute. "Get off of me!"

"I'm your _husband_," Andrew repeated. He wrapped one arm around her and CC had a moment of true fear when she realized that Andrew's strength outstripped hers.

"Stop!" she cried. The screech of her voice and Chester's renewed barks woke Andrew to the situation, and CC finally pushed him off of her. He stumbled back into the door frame, his back connecting painfully with the wood.

Andrew looked around, confused. He looked up at CC and started to speak before she pushed him out of her penthouse and slammed the door, locking it immediately.

She stood for a few moments, uncertain about what to do, before walking back to the couch, wrapping her blanket around her, and bursting into tears.


	5. 5

[A/N: Many thanks to the reviewers, ESPECIALLY Kathy who old-timers in the Nanny fandom will fondly remember as KathyB. KATHYB, GUYS!]

5.

Niles set down a plate of sandwiches on the kitchen table for Fran and Grace. Grace sat with several books open before her, a notebook half-filled in front of the books. Both said thanks to Niles, who smiled distractedly in reply and went back to stand sentry at the kitchen island. He pretended to keep busy so they wouldn't ask any questions. He'd perfected the art of looking busy over the past week. CC had appeared at the house even less than the week prior, and whenever she did show up, she made sure to be talking to Maxwell or talking on the phone. She hadn't even accepted a cup of coffee from him.

When the entire family had gone to bed that week, Niles had ventured into various rooms of the house, rooms that would ensure complete silence, and sat there, thinking about his life. He wished there was a less cliché way of phrasing it, but that's all he was doing. He tried to pinpoint the exact moment that he'd decided to pin all of his hopes on a life with CC, but now that that possibility was gone, it appeared that that's _exactly_ what he'd done. This was no pipe dream, as he'd originally thought it was. That would have at least been realistic.

He suspected, though, that the idea of CC represented more than just his feelings for her. (After the epiphanies of the past two weeks, he'd easily admitted to himself that he had feelings for her, surprising as that was. Admitting it to _other_ people, now…) CC being in his life automatically increased every area of it: romantic, sexual, economic, financial. She would elevate him in every possible way and though it disgusted him to admit it, he wouldn't even have to _work_ very hard for it.

His life was in very much of a standstill, and it had been since he'd graduated from Oxford. By pinning all of his hopes on CC, Niles realized, he was able to transfer all of the responsibility for nearly every aspect of his life onto her.

But the emergence of Andrew represented everything Niles was not and, now, everything he could never be. Both men were well-educated, but after that, the similarities stopped. Andrew was younger, richer, more ambitious, and likely much more hard-working. Perhaps CC cared for Niles more, but that mattered little in the world Andrew and CC lived in. The world that Niles served.

Niles looked up as the kitchen door swung open. His stupid, stupid heart leapt excitedly as Maxwell and CC entered the kitchen. She'd pinned half of her hair back and her soft red sweater highlighted her beautifully. Niles sighed inwardly. This was the other scenario in which he'd seen her over the week: in a room so filled with people that any conversation between them was impossible.

Still, her eyes looked tired and her face far less expressive than Niles was used to.

"Niles, help me convince CC to stay for dinner," Maxwell said heartily, walking over and kissing Fran and Grace on the forehead in succession. CC stood on the opposite side of the island and looked at Niles, who shrugged and turned to the dishes in the sink. Maxwell's job done—that is, pilfering it off onto Niles—the millionaire distracted himself with his wife and daughter.

"Max, your daughter is a whole lot smarter than me," Fran said.

"Don't say that, sweetheart," Max said.

"Why not, it's true," CC muttered under her breath. She heard Niles snicker across the room.

"What are you working on?" Max asked his daughter, sitting down on the opposite side of the table.

"I'm writing a paper about Chaucer and his use of the locus amoenus," Grace said, tapping her pencil against one of the open books.

"His use of what?" Maxwell asked, confused.

"_Locus amoenus_," Fran replied knowledgeably. "You know, Latin for _hocus pocus_. Magic and stuff."

CC rolled her eyes and inspected her nails. "Locus amoenus. It means 'happy place.' Chaucer usually uses a garden."

Grace brightened and smiled at CC, who looked up, surprised at all of the people in the room staring at her. "What? I had a minor in literature."

"Exactly," Grace agreed excitedly. "It's all about a perfect place of safety and comfort, usually echoing the Garden of Eden. So I'm analyzing his use of them in his poems."

"Sounds great," Fran said with a dreamy smile. "Mine would have shoes, chocolate, and the men of _One Life to Live_ in it. And you," Fran added, guiltily looking at Maxwell.

"That's not really the po—" Grace began.

"What about you, honey?" Fran asked her husband.

"_Cats_ wouldn't exist. It would always be tea time, with biscuits, jam, and clotted cream," Maxwell replied.

"Clotted cream?" Fran asked, disgusted, smacking her lips. "How about you, Niles? What's your happy place?"

CC snorted. "Unlimited Lemon Pledge and wood floors as far as the eye can see."

Niles rolled his eyes and ignored her, turning to Fran. "What's the point if it never happens?"

Grace looked over at him worriedly. "I think it's the idea and not the possibility that really matters."

"But the idea serves no purpose if it never comes true," Niles pointed out with a shrug.

"What about you, Miss Babcock?" Grace asked, turning to the blonde who looked bored with the conversation.

"Probably a world where I could actually figure it out on my own," CC responded. "Have a great weekend, Maxwell." CC slipped out of the kitchen and the only two who noticed, Grace and Niles, looked at each other with mild concern. Grace then looked pointedly at Niles and at the swinging door, nudging him with her thoughts. Niles nodded and exited the kitchen quickly.

"Miss Babcock," Niles called out as he walked hurriedly down the hall and into the foyer. CC turned and looked at him blankly. "I haven't…haven't spoken to you in a while."

"I wasn't aware we had anything to say to each other," CC said.

"I rather think it's the opposite," Niles admitted. CC shrugged and continued sliding her arms into her coat. Niles felt strangely desperate, as though if she left at that moment, something would be irrevocably changed. "How…er, how are things with your mother?"

CC smiled, more at Niles's attempt at conversation than the thought of her mother. "The same as they've always been. Apparently I've been granted a week or two to _think things over_."

"What sort of things?"

CC twined her scarf around her throat and began buttoning her coat. "Nothing. That's what makes it laughable. I have no choice in the matter, in any matter, really, but it makes her feel good to pretend like I do."

"You _do_ have a choice." CC stopped her motions and stared at him. "Well, you do. She can't…she can't _force_ you to do anything you don't want to do."

"This conversation sounds familiar, Niles. She can," CC told him, resuming her buttoning.

"Only if you let her," Niles reminded her.

CC sighed and shook her head simultaneously. "Fine. Then I'm letting her. Are we done here?"

"No," Niles said, grabbing her elbow to halt her tedious movements. "I don't want you to just—"

"To just what? What, Niles? What do you want from me?" CC suddenly shrieked, yanking her elbow from his hand and taking a step away. "Everyone else knows exactly what they want from me, it simplifies things, really, can't you see that? So just tell me, specifically, what it is you want from me and it'll clear everything right up."

Niles held up both palms in the international gesture of backing off slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"My mother, my father, Andrew, everyone," CC ranted.

Niles looked at her suspiciously. "What do you mean about Andrew?"

CC looked back at him and bit her lip. "Nothing, he just…"

Niles reached out and touched her arm softly, carefully. "He what?"

"He…well, he came over to my place last weekend," CC began, her face worried. Niles held his emotions in check, concerned about the look on CC's face. "And…and nothing. He was just drunk and he tried to kiss me at first, but—"

"Did he try to force himself on you?" Niles asked, his voice less controlled.

"No, no, he just…" CC tapered off. She remembered Andrew's arm slung around her and his insistence that he was a man.

Something in CC's face negated her words, or at least added more doubt to her conviction, and Niles let go of her arm to open the front closet and pull out his coat.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

Niles looked at her and sighed, his face once again so sad that CC felt her throat constrict. He touched her cheek softly and said, "It doesn't simplify anything if you don't want it, too." He left her to sort that out and walked out the front door.

The elevator announced his arrival as Niles exited it and stepped onto the soft carpeting of Andrew's father's company. There was a risk, he knew, that Andrew might not be here. The holidays brought strange, irregular schedules only enjoyed by the rich.

A pert, cheerful receptionist sat behind the desk with a small mouthpiece affixed to her ear. "Good afternoon, welcome to Wilcox Corporation. How can I help you?"

"Hello, love," Niles greeted amicably. He knew a little politeness often went a long way with…well, with people in his field of employment. "I'm here to see Andrew Wilcox."

She smiled at him and brought forth a clipboard with one sheet of paper on it. "Wonderful. Do you have an appointment?"

It took Niles a split second to make up his mind. "Oh, I hope so. I'm Maxwell Sheffield's butler. He sent me here with some papers for Mr. Wilcox to sign." By some miracle, Niles had some folded sheets of paper stuffed into his inner pocket, and he showed them to her now, careful to keep them folded. He hoped the secretary wouldn't want to see it; he doubted a recipe for Christmas ham would pass as important papers for Andrew Wilcox.

The receptionist scanned the list of appointments and made an exaggerated face of regret. "Oh, dear. I don't see you anywhere on here."

"Bloody hell," Niles muttered. Playing up his Britishness often helped, too, for whatever reason. "Mr. Sheffield _swore_ he made a sodding appointment."

She leaned over the tall desk conspiratorially. "Debbie is Andrew's personal secretary. She does this a lot." She glanced down at the list again and looked back up at Niles with another smile. "You know what, he has a few minutes free right now. Let me just tell Debbie you're heading over."

Niles pantomimed wiping relieved sweat off of his forehead. "Thanks _so_ much."

She pressed a button on her headset and chirped, "Hi, Debbie. Maxwell Sheffield's butler is coming to Mr. Wilcox's office with some papers for him. Can you let Andrew know?" She nodded once and pressed another button. "Go on in. All the way down the hall, last office on the right."

"You're a _lifesaver_, love," Niles said, tossing a flirtatious grin over his shoulder. He walked through the frosted glass doors and his face smoldered. Any man touching CC filled Niles with indignation, but the thought of one forcing himself upon her under the guise of being her husband suffused him with fiery rage.

He spared a cursory nod for Debbie before walking into Andrew's office.

"Niles, is it? Hello. What could Maxwell ha—" Andrew managed to get out before Niles's fist met his jaw. Andrew's face contorted into a mask of confusion and pain as Niles balled his Oxford shirt in his palm. He pulled Andrew's already-swollen face towards his.

"You don't touch her," he managed to seethe out.

"Wha—" Andrew choked out, stumbling forward after Niles let go of him and exited his office.

"Thanks, love, you really helped," Niles threw to the receptionist, who beamed, as he entered the elevator and left the building.

CC entered the mansion the next morning; though it was Saturday, she planned to get as much work done as possible before everyone and their mother took extended time off over the holiday. That was her ready-made excuse, at least; what she really wanted was to talk to Niles. The previous afternoon, she'd spent so long hovering in indecision that by the time she left the mansion to follow Niles, he had disappeared from the street. The news at 11pm and again at 8am hadn't said anything about a butler arrested, so her fears were slightly allayed.

Still, her sneaky little butler could get into a great deal of trouble on his own without any authorities noticing. She paused as she went to hang up her coat. "_My_ butler?" she muttered to herself. "Jesus."

She wasn't sure what had happened to her over the past week. A contrite and rather embarrassed Andrew had shown up on her doorstep on Sunday afternoon, maintaining a polite distance from her front door. He'd apologized profusely, and genuinely enough, CC thought, and there was the smallest wriggling of pity in her heart when Andrew's face clouded over and he mentioned a few unkind words about his father. She had thought back to their meeting with both of their parents, and suddenly Andrew's lack of amicability on that day made a lot more sense.

Still, their interactions were not as friendly and though CC told him that she accepted his apology, she was not alight with forgiveness. She simply understood—or mostly understood, anyhow.

For the other man in her life, well…she mostly understood that, too. She hated the idea of him with GG, but objectively, CC understood that they'd had no claim on each other at that time. Yes, Niles's actions felt like a betrayal—but if they had no true relationship to speak of (and never would, CC constantly reminded herself), what was there to betray?

She could always rely on her anger, but even that was slipping away slowly. She tried to reign it back in so that she could properly frighten Andrew and Niles from ever attempting to hurt her again, but it took far too much energy. Far easier to accept things as they were, CC started to feel. One can only go against the current for so long.

No one was in the office currently, so CC set down her bag and went in search of people in the Sheffield home. She met Grace as CC walked down the hall towards the dining room.

"Hello, little one," CC greeted.

Grace smiled. "Hi, Miss Babcock."

"How's your paper?"

"Oh, I finished it last night. If you're looking for my dad, he and Fran went shopping," Grace told her.

"Figures. I get more done without either of them here, anyway," CC said. Grace laughed lightly.

"Niles is still here, but I don't know how much _he_ can get done today," Grace said.

"Why?"

The youngest Sheffield only smiled and shrugged. "He's in the kitchen. You should go see him."

Grace walked off and CC set off, with slight trepidation, to the kitchen. When she pushed open the door, she saw Niles look up and slide something off of his hand, shaking his arm so that his sweater came down over it.

"What did you do?" CC asked, walking over to Niles.

"Good morning to you, too," Niles said, smoothly walking away from her. He quickly slipped on some oven mitts and looked at her, triumphant.

"The oven isn't even on, dumbass," CC snapped, reaching forward and yanking off the mitt on his right hand. Gasping, she roughly pulled his hand closer. Niles winced and hissed between his teeth. His bruised hand gave way to his red knuckles, one of which was scraped raw. "What did you _do_?" she repeated, now tenderly holding his hand, fascinated by the different shades of red she saw.

"I hit him," he responded with a shrug.

CC took one more mesmerized look at his hand before throwing it aside and shoving Niles square in the chest, causing him to emit an _oomph_ sound. "You _idiot_!"

"What? I was…I was _defending _your honor!" Niles protested.

"My honor?" she spat out. "Never mind that you regularly remind me that I have none. This is serious, Niles. You could get sued for assault!"

"Well, I wasn't thinking about _that_."

"You weren't thinking at all!" CC exclaimed. "Niles, _Niles_, God, this will only set her off more."

"Her?" Niles repeated, confused. "Your mother? Come on, Babcock."

"Look what she did when she heard you visited me. What do you think she'll do after she hears you _attacked_ my husband?"

"Don't call him that," Niles snapped, suddenly heated.

CC's shoulders relaxed slightly. "I didn't mean—that's how _she'll_ see it. You just couldn't leave well enough alone."

At that, Niles laughed. "Yes, because you spinelessly bowing to your mother's will and miserably doing what everyone tells you to do is 'well enough'."

"You don't understand," she said, rubbing her face tiredly. "You just don't. It's a different situation with people who are just…just _different_ and you're…"

"What? Normal? Human?" Niles suggested.

She sighed and handed him back his oven mitt. "Just a butler."

Niles watched her leave the kitchen, wondering what offended him the most about their entire interaction. He couldn't settle on just one thing, so he took off the other oven mitt and put them away. There was a possibility of going after her and continuing the conversation, of course, but their discussions were becoming cyclical and pointless. Any sort of admission on either part, even if it was something as simple as _yes, I notice you_ was almost immediately invalidated by either one of them regressing back 5 steps. It used to invigorate him. Now it exhausted him.

Still, his curiosity won as he passed by the open office door twenty minutes later. Unsurprised, he saw that she'd left. He turned, curious, at the sound of the doorbell.

BB stood on the other side of the door, smiling politely. Niles was sure that CC would hate any comparisons, but he saw a lot of her daughter in BB's posture, nose, and slight sneer.

"Good morning," Niles said, giving a small bow. For the rest of that day, and likely the rest of his life, he would wonder what on earth compelled him to bow, after he'd just accused CC of doing the same.

"Is it?" BB returned, entering the mansion and unwrapping herself from a large, gray woolen monstrosity. She handed it to Niles and then rested the handle of her purse in the crook of her arm.

"Miss Babcock isn't here right now," Niles told her, still holding her wrap. Hanging it up meant she was staying.

"Interestingly enough, I came here to talk to you," BB said.

"About?"

"My daughter, of course," she told him, stepping down into the foyer and tapping a petal from the bouquet on the table. Niles half-expected the flower arrangement to wither and die before him.

"All right," Niles said. BB looked pointedly at her wrap until Niles hung it up on a hook in the closet.

"Did you know that in the year before CC's debutante year, she received 8 proposals?" BB asked.

Niles raised his eyebrow. He knew CC very well, he thought, but he had very little interest in her debutante life and, as far as he could tell, so did she.

"Well, she's a pretty enough girl, you can see that," BB continued dismissively. "DD received 10. Anyhow, CC's…well, I guess you could call them _suitors_, couldn't you, are doing quite well. Five of them run Fortune 500 companies, one lives off his rather ingenious investments, one is an ambassador, and the last is a senator who I've heard is in the running for presidential nomination."

"This is fascinating, Mrs. Babcock, but—"

"CC turned all of them down, of course," BB went on, feigning obliviousness at his attempted interruptions. "Still, Andrew is a fine choice. He'll lead his father's company quite well."

"'Choice' is a rather interesting word to use, don't you think?"

BB tilted her head to look at him, an amused smile on her face. "You sound just like CC when she was 18. She _had_ a choice, Niles. She still does. If the consequences of one are more preferable to another, that doesn't change the fact that she has a choice."

Niles put his hands in his pockets, concealing his balled fists. Funny how BB claiming CC had a choice rankled him, but CC saying she didn't have one irritated him just as much. It was all perspective, he supposed. "Is that all you wanted to tell me about?"

BB turned to him. "You seem like a levelheaded butler, whatever your lofty dreams are. You should understand my daughter's motivations. She's tried every form of rebellion possible, but her favorite has always been to mingle with the help. She befriended the chef's daughter when she was 10 and claimed, for an entire 6 months, that the girl was her best friend. Stuart told me he couldn't hire any chauffeurs younger than 30, for quite obvious reasons."

"I wasn't aware you paid enough attention to your daughter's childhood to notice such things," Niles said, his tone still very much polite.

BB bristled. "Don't mistake whatever my daughter does with you. It's just rebellion."

"I live to help, ma'am," Niles told her. He gave her a cocky grin.

"I breakfasted with Theo and Andrew this morning. Andrew is sporting quite a bruise on his jaw."

"Is he? Shame."

"It would be an even bigger shame for whoever did it to have a record of assault. Most households shy away from having servants in the home with such a past, especially when there are children present," BB said, her voice coolly dispassionate.

Niles simply stared at her. He tried to imagine CC growing up with this heathen as a mother.

"I would hope that someone of your status would give up such frivolous fantasies," BB told him, keeping her light blue eyes on his. "My daughter is not the strongest, emotionally speaking, and your pursuit of any sort of future with her is unhelpful, not to mention laughable."

"I think we have very different views of what is helpful for your daughter," Niles returned smoothly.

"Yes, we do," BB agreed. "Mine is to provide her with a future that is financially secure and accustomed to the life she's used to. Yours is, apparently, to take her away from her family and her family's means and to spend the rest of her life married to a man who still, I believe, doesn't call her by her first name?"

Niles laughed. "I've been caught. I suppose I should return my engagement ring now."

BB smirked. "You can use the Walmart store credit to purchase some new clothes." At that, she fetched her own wrap from the closet and exited the front door.

BB's surprise visit cast a sour mood upon Niles, one that had grown in size and endurance, picking up bitterness along the way. It was nothing he hadn't thought before, but he supposed the reality of another person pointing it out to him made it all the weightier. He knew CC noticed the change in his demeanor; he felt her looking at him whenever he'd enter a room and saw her face, more than once, tinge with sadness when he made to leave it, paying no more attention to her than a butler ought to have.

But the full humiliation of the entire ordeal made itself known later in the week. Niles knew that the Sheffields had plans to attend a Christmas party, but the host had remained a mystery until Maxwell received a call a week before the event.

"Yes, of course. I completely understand. I'm sure he'll be happy to. Fantastic!" Maxwell hung up the phone, a broad smile on his face, just as Niles entered the office with a tray of tea. "Niles, old man, just the person I'm looking for. I've just had a call from Mrs. Babcock, CC's mother."

Niles set the tray down more roughly than usual. CC was, as was usual now, absent. "And?"

"Well, it seems that her Christmas party next week is a waiter short," Maxwell said, briefly explaining why. Niles stopped paying attention, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for BB's latest act of degradation. "She said she'd heard some wonderful things about you, old man, and she seemed so reluctant to ask, so I offered your services for the party. What do you say?"

The decision was already made, of course; Maxwell pretending to ask for Niles's agreement was something Niles called _rich guilt_. Pretending to offer the help choices, when they had none, was one way to assuage it. "Of course, sir."

"Fantastic! You'll need your tuxedo, so why don't you take some time off this afternoon to drop it off at the cleaner's?" Max suggested, his mind already returning to work.

"Of course, sir." Niles left the office, fuming. He'd briefly wondered why he hadn't been served with any sort of summons or warrant for his 'attack' on Andrew, but he knew that path was too sloppy. A butler assaulting Andrew Wilcox? It might give other servants an idea.

But now, he understood. He would work at the Christmas party which, in all likelihood, CC and Andrew would attend. What other situation could force Niles to realize the futility of his feelings? Others could, possibly, but this one had enough pathos to intrigue BB.

Niles burst into the kitchen, the revolving door smacking against the wall behind it, and CC jumped a step backward, the fridge closing.

"Someone use up all of your Pine Sol?" CC guessed.

"Now she deigns to speak to me?" Niles snapped, shoving a kitchen chair that wasn't in his way. He turned on the faucet with a vengeance. Why did making tea dirty up so many dishes? Why did she have to be in here while he did them?

"You're the one who's been mute all week," CC pointed out. Niles glared at her as he squirted dish soap into the sink. She sighed. "If this is about what I said last weekend, about you just being a butler—"

"Oh, but it's _true_, Miss Babcock," Niles seethed. "Is there anything I can get for you, Miss Babcock? Do you need your shoes shined, Miss Babcock? I apologize, Miss Babcock, I shouldn't even be making eye contact with you." He gave her a bow, this one low and exaggerated.

Still, he couldn't resist looking over at her as he returned to the dishes. He'd expected anger, maybe even a sexually-laced directive about him getting down on his knees to shine her shoes, but instead there was another look on her face, one of profound disappointment. There was no sharpness to it, but still it pierced his righteous indignation and left him deflated and small.

"She got to you, too, didn't she," CC said to him. It was not a question, and so Niles didn't know how to answer. She laughed, once, quick and abrupt and humorless. "She even took you away." She spun on her heel and left the kitchen.

The week leading up to the Christmas party found CC mostly in her penthouse. She worked from her home office, calling backers, settling disputes among the director and choreographer, and finalizing contracts. She had little desire to be out in the world or talk to anyone if it wasn't work-related.

She felt a darkness settling over her, and though it wasn't as heavy and burdensome as it had been before she'd been sent to the Place, it still worried her. She knew enough now to know that she ought to call Dr. Bort and schedule an appointment with her, but an indifferent dissatisfaction prevented her from picking up the phone.

She knew enough about her depression to understand that, as much as she'd like to, there was not one cause for its resurgence and so there couldn't be one solution to it. But since Thanksgiving, so many things that had proved to be so important to her had slipped away: her freedom, her future, even the vaguest notion that her family might have supported her. Niles.

Blinking rapidly, she staved off an onslaught of tears. Her emotions, usually so easily controlled, brimmed close to the surface lately, and she knew this was another symptom of her mental setback. She hadn't heard from Niles since last Thursday, and she hadn't even bothered to question her mother about what had happened. BB seemed to take CC's sullenness as confirmation that her plan had worked, so she hadn't said anything either.

When BB had shown up Sunday afternoon with a garment bag, CC had simply taken it and nodded along as her mother instructed her to wear it to the Christmas party. How exciting for BB, CC had thought as she saw her mother smile at her agreeableness, to finally have the pliable and compliant daughter she'd always wanted.

CC reached towards her phone to call their leading lady's agent but her hand dropped halfway there. Suddenly, she felt so weary. When she heard her doorbell ring, she sat in her chair for a full minute before deciding what to do. Visitors on the other side of her door had never been something she'd looked forward to, and now she greeted the idea with absolute dread.

When the bell rang again, and Chester's barks verged on psychotic, CC stood and walked towards the door. Seeing her father through the peephole, CC immediately unlocked her door and flung it open.

"Where have you been?" she asked, one arm still holding the door open.

"Kitten," Stuart greeted, walking a few steps towards her and embracing her. CC stood as still as a board. When was the last time her father had hugged her? "I'm so sorry. I've been in France—"

"Where apparently they don't have any telephones," CC remarked, shutting the door before Chester ran out.

"I'm sorry," Stuart said again, pressing his palm to his chest, clad in a crisp black suit. "I had no idea what your mother was planning."

"So you didn't know?"

"Of course not," Stuart said, his forehead wrinkling in dismay. "I don't support any of this, kitten."

For a moment, CC's heart soared. "Can you stop any of it, then?"

The look on his face took out its shotgun and wrenched her heart from the air. "I don't think so. If it was just your mother, yes, but it seems like Andrew's family supports it as well."

"Then why are you here?" CC snapped, anger seething out of her pores.

"I came to offer my help," Stuart said, spreading his palms magnanimously. CC glared at him, the man infinitely more comfortable being a businessman than being a father.

"Why? You haven't offered it any time before," CC replied.

"CC, no need to be—"

"So rude? You sound just like your wife," CC said. "You've never been here for me, not even last year when…" CC trailed off. Her anger swept out of the room as quickly as her father had appeared in it.

Stuart had the good grace to hang his head. "I'm sorry, CC. I truly don't know what to say. As soon as I heard your mother was in New York, I left right away. I never imagined she'd take it this far."

Despite the obvious truth in his words, CC still couldn't muster any gratitude towards the man who, let's not forget, arranged the entire marriage in the first place. "Yes, well. You married her. You should know."

"I know her as well as you do," Stuart said. "Our marriage more closely resembles yours and Andrew's than you might think."

CC raised her eyebrows at him, and he nodded earnestly.

"I'd known her longer than you knew Andrew, of course," Stuart said. "And for quite some time, I'd thought we could make it work…but your mother being who she is…"

CC nodded. "Are you attending the Christmas party tonight?"

"I suppose I will. You know, I think your brother is coming in town for it," Stuart told her. CC rolled her eyes. "Oh, come now, CC. He regrets his hand in this. He's the one who tracked me down in the Rhone Valley, you know. Asked if I could help."

CC managed a small smile. At least she still had her brother, she supposed.

After a few more minutes of irrelevant small talk, CC let her father leave to get situated in his hotel before the party and CC languished on the couch long enough to wonder if she could hole up in her penthouse effectively enough to skip the party that night.

An insistent knock on the door took her from her reverie. Confused, but thinking perhaps it was her brother, CC walked over to the door and groaned when she saw who it was.

"I heard that, Miss Babcock!" Fran's voice called out. "I know you're in there!"

"Yes, but why are_ you_ out there?" CC returned.

"Just visiting!" Fran sang out.

Reluctantly CC unlocked and opened her door, Fran's bright orange coat a shock to the eyes compared to CC's white and slate gray décor. "Hi, Nanny Fine."

"Hiya, Miss Babcock. I haven't seen you in a while," Fran said.

CC shut the door behind her and motioned to the closet, indicating that Fran could hang up her coat if she wanted. "No, I've been working from home."

"Hmm," Fran said, hanging up her coat and revealing an even brighter red and green monstrosity. CC wondered if she could politely ask Fran to put her coat back on. "Niles has been in a funk lately, too."

"Scrubbing Bubbles always has something up his shorts," CC said dismissively, sitting on the couch next to Chester. Fran sat down on the chair adjacent to it, and Chester immediately jumped down and cuddled on Fran's lap. CC glowered.

"It seems like his mood swings follow yours, though," Fran pointed out. "Maybe you've synced cycles!"

CC laughed at what Niles would say to that, and although the most she could claim to have felt towards Fran before was tolerance, she felt a rush of gratitude at the nanny for at least offering her amusement.

"But really, Miss Babcock, I came to ask if you were all right," Fran said, her voice suddenly and surprisingly serious. "I haven't asked about your husband _even though I'm dying to know_ because as my own reminds me every day, it's none of my business. But you just don't seem like yourself."

CC made a sound of indifference and brushed a piece of lint off of her knee.

"For example, you didn't say anything about my Christmas outfit, and normally you would," Fran pointed out. "Something like, I dunno, _every time you wear a dress like that, Nanny Fine, an angel gets trampled to death_."

For the second time that day, CC laughed. "That's pretty good. I'll have to remember that. All right," she granted with a nod, "things have been terrible. How much has Niles told you?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" she repeated incredulously.

"Nothing!" Fran affirmed, in as much disbelief as CC. "That's how I _really_ know something is wrong."

In as abridged a story as she could manage, CC filled Fran in on everything, leaving out certain details (namely, that she and Niles had had sex). "So I guess this is what it is, then. Maybe I'll get lucky and I'll be infertile so he'll divorce me."

To her credit, Fran didn't ask why CC wouldn't just refuse to comply. "That's _horrible_. Oy, you gentiles are something else. I'm not saying my mother didn't harass me about marriage, 'cause ya know she did, but nothing like _this_."

"Yes, well. That's my story," CC summed up.

"Well, it explains why Niles is so crabby, then," Fran said, leaning back in the chair and scratching Chester's ears.

"Does it?" CC asked innocently.

"Look, Miss Babcock, I know we don't talk about this, but I've watched enough soap operas in my life to know sexual tension when I see it, and I saw it from day one with you two," Fran explained. "And I thought that was it, and it makes sense, right? You see it in all the movies. The butler and the business partner. Forbidden romance. They pretend to hate each other, but really, they just want to have sex."

CC stared at the nanny, listening as her relationship with Niles became a common trope.

"But that _isn't_ just it," Fran continued. "Though let me tell you, the kiss I saw between you three years ago? That would have given the censors something to scream about. Hoo-ha!" Fran fanned herself. "But I saw how you were when he was in the hospital. Then I saw how _he_ was when you were in the hospital. But let me tell you, right now, he's just miserable."

CC shifted uncomfortably. She should have never taken for granted that the nanny wasn't paying that much attention to her.

"And I'm not _blaming_ you or anything, but I get it. I do," Fran said.

"You get what?" CC asked, not following Fran's whacky train ride of a thought.

"Why he's so unhappy. I remember a lot of times, throughout the years, when I realized how ridiculous it was for me to be in love with Max," Fran admitted. "I never talked about it, but it was there. He's rich, I'm not. He's got his own society, I don't. I don't really fit into his lifestyle. But it was always so much worse when someone else pointed it out to me."

"I never realized you were so…"

"Aware?" Fran supplied. She smiled at CC. "Not as dumb as I look. It doesn't help that most of the shows I watched when I grew up said 'love conquers all' and that was that. It isn't that simple."

"No, it isn't."

"And people from different social classes don't usually get married," Fran said with a simple shrug. "So I get why Niles is so depressed. Right when he starts realizing he really has it bad for ya, he realizes he'll never get a chance with you."

"I…" CC didn't finish her sentence. What could she say? Fran only looked at her sympathetically.

"I don't hate you for it, Miss Babcock. I think you're as bummed about losing that chance as he is," Fran said conspiratorially.

"Nanny Fine, I have no idea what to say. I never thought I'd have this conversation with you."

"It's important to know that people understand what you're going through," was all Fran offered. "Plus Grace has been bugging me about you since Thanksgiving, saying she's worried about you."

A warm feeling ignited inside her as though she'd just gulped hot chocolate. "Well, I…thank you."

Fran smiled. "You're welcome. So," Fran said, clapping her hands to her knees and startling Chester. "Let's talk about this Christmas party tonight."

CC shrunk back against the couch. "Let's not."

"Yes, let's. Look, being married to Max isn't always easy, and I'm not looking forward to this party very much, either," Fran told her. "I'm just the gold-digging nanny, right? So let's face this thing together. As friends."

"Friends?" CC repeated warily.

"Yes, Miss Babcock, as friends. What are you wearing tonight?"

"A dress my mother sent over. It's in that closet," CC said, waving an indifferent hand towards where Fran had hung up her coat.

Fran hopped up and over to the closet, pulling out the bag and unzipping it. She made a face. "It's ok. Very…pink."

"Pink?" CC repeated, hurrying over to Fran and looking at the pink chiffon dress. "What is she doing? I hate pink. I'm not going to this party."

"Hmm," Fran said, a very Lucy Ricardo-esque look on her face. "I have an idea."


	6. 6

[A/N: Another ridiculously long chapter. Thanks to all the reviewers sticking with this. I started this story extremely uncertain but it's grown on me. Two more chapters to go!]

6.

"What did you do, exactly?" Maxwell asked nervously as he and Fran pulled up to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

"I told ya, she was feeling nervous for this party so I helped her," Fran repeated, checking her lipstick in the mirror. She unhooked her seat belt and exited the car, smiling to the valet as Maxwell handed him the keys.

"Yes, I know, darling, but what does that mean?" he asked, guiding her towards the door with a soft hand on her elbow. "I do wish you'd stay out of this entire affair."

"And I _do wish_ you'd show some more concern for your two oldest friends," Fran remarked, irritation flaring up. They followed directions to the Emory Roth room and Fran had to suppress the urge to gawk at the surroundings. After attending comfortable gatherings and fun parties her entire life, it struck her how much effort rich people put into making guests "comfortable" when for her, it did the exact opposite.

Maxwell took her white faux-fur wrap and handed it and his coat to a young man standing in wait for it. They entered the room together and accepted flutes of champagne from a passing waiter. "I am concerned, but I don't know what good we can possibly do by interfering."

Fran took a sip and almost cooed as the bubbles went straight to her nostrils. "I made Miss Babcock laugh today. A lot. So I think I helped."

"She was laughing? At you?" Maxwell asked, surprised, as he sipped his own champagne.

"No, _with_ me!" Fran replied with a grin. "So just have some fun and keep your eye out for Niles. He was _not_ happy when I saw him this afternoon." Never a fan of his tuxedo, Niles had absolutely glowered as he left the manse to help set up for the party.

Maxwell tried to swallow his guilt and looked around for anyone else he might recognize.

Fran smacked his arm just as he was in mid-sip; champagne splashed over the front of his tuxedo. "There she is!"

Max mopped at his front with a cocktail napkin and looked up at CC. "She looks lovely, but I don't see how that's worth ruining my—"

"She looks _beautiful_," Fran breathed, clasping her hands at her chest like a proud mother. CC had kept glancing suspiciously at Fran as the nanny gave her directions from the passenger's seat of her BMW earlier that afternoon as they made their way towards Queens. And when they slowed to a halt in front of a shop full of garish, colorful outfits, CC had actually reached towards the ignition to start the car again and drive away, but Fran had been quicker. She'd yanked the keys from the ignition and hopped out of the car, shutting the door against CC's expletives.

But Rosie, the tailor of choice amongst the Jews of Queens, had outdone herself in a matter of hours. She had taken the dress BB chose, which originally left CC looking like a virginal peasant girl, and transformed CC into a goddess at sunrise. She had taken the matte satin of the dress and tailored it to CC's shape, and the chiffon overlay swirled around her curves, masking and revealing them depending on the sway of the dress. Both fabrics met to hug her waist, and the chiffon twisted at her breasts to add any accent that the sweetheart neckline may have missed.

Fran abandoned Maxwell and walked over to CC, unable to resist giving her a hug. CC returned the hug, somewhat awkwardly, and offered a smile to Fran. She had flatly refused to allow Fran to touch her hair, opting instead to twist and pin it back herself, but she had reluctantly agreed to let Fran do her makeup if—and only if—Fran kept a mirror in front of CC's face at all times to, quote, "prevent me from looking like a Barnum and Bailey reject."

"Miss Babcock, you're _breath-taking_," Fran told her, sincerely gushing.

"I know. Literally, I can barely breathe in this thing," CC said, tugging subtly at the top of her dress.

"The price we have to pay, eh?" Fran agreed, plucking at the skintight fabric of her own silver halter gown.

CC wanted to disagree and add that there was something else, another reason, but at that moment, she spotted her mother coming towards her. "Stay here. No, go get me champagne. No, stay here," CC stammered.

"Oy," was all Fran could get out before BB swept upon them.

"CC, what have you done to your dress?" BB asked, a smile on her face but a grimace in her voice.

"I made some improvements to it," CC explained, her voice stable.

"I think it looks great!" Fran said cheerfully, giving BB a bright smile.

BB eyed Fran up and down, from the top of her huge hair to the bottom of her stiletto heels. "Yes, you would." She turned back to her daughter. "You look like a common whore."

"Better than an uncommon one, I guess," CC replied, plucking champagne from a waiter.

"Really, CC, you can see so much cleavage," BB said, a distasteful look on her face.

"I'm married, not buried," CC tossed over her shoulder as she turned to walk away. Fran followed, her loud laughter adding even more offense to the composed woman.

"Oh!" Fran squealed as they nearly bumped into another passing waiter. "Oh…" Fran said again, when she realized that this waiter was—

"Niles?" CC said, nearly dropping her flute of champagne. "What are you doing…" She saw the sterling silver tray of champagne flutes in his hand and drained her current one before she could continue. "Never mind."

Niles ground his jaw and chose instead to look at Fran who, no offense intended to his best friend, looked much less appealing and therefore not as dangerous for him. He didn't even flinch when CC leaned forward, offering him a blissful vantage point of her breasts blossoming from the top of her dress, and snatched another champagne flute from his tray.

Fran tapped her acrylic nail against her own glass and looked around, hoping to find something to distract one of them, and then she wished desperately that there was nothing to distract them, for surely this awkward, tense moment was a thousand times better than what would certainly happen now.

CC glanced at Fran, followed Fran's eye line, and then, for some reason, laughed when she saw GG strutting into the room. "Oh, Jesus. Niles, your girlfriend is here." CC sidestepped him but purposely bumped into his shoulder, setting the champagne flutes tinkling against each other.

CC stalked away from Fran and Niles, intent on finding a quiet place to herself, maybe bum a cigarette off of someone, when BB came into her line of vision. She continued towards her mother, downed the rest of her champagne, and said, "_You_ invited her here, you awful cu—"

"Cunning woman, yes, yes," Noel said loudly over the rest of CC's sentence. He hooked his arm into his sister's and steered her off course, heading instead towards the hors d'ouevres table.

"Big brother, hello," CC said sarcastically.

"Eat something," Noel said, unhooking his arm and grabbing two small plates.

"I've lost my appetite," CC said, watching GG and BB exchange cheek kisses.

"I just watched you shotgun two flutes of champagne. You need to eat," Noel said firmly, handing her a plate of stuffed mushrooms. CC grabbed one and stuffed it in her mouth.

"Happy?" she asked, her mouth full. Noel scrunched up his face in disgust.

"Where's your husband?"

"Where's your boyfriend?" CC asked sulkily, grabbing another mushroom.

"In Chicago with his new graduate advisor, I presume," Noel replied.

This brought CC up short. "Oh. I'm sorry. He'd been 'studying' under you for a long time now."

Noel nodded and shrugged in the universal gesture of _what can you do about it?_ "I was looking for an out in that relationship anyhow. You ignored my question about your husband."

"I have no idea where he is," CC said. "Probably finding an oil-based foundation to cover his jaw."

"You attacked another one?"

"Don't say it like that, as though I physically assault men on a regular basis."

"But—"

"_Anyway_, it was Niles who hit him, not me," CC interrupted.

"How gallant. I imagine BB was not pleased."

"Have you seen Niles this evening? If you need another champagne, he's the man to ask."

Noel winced. "She didn't."

"She did."

"Am I the only person getting antsy for the 'Mummy died' joke to become a reality?"

"Noel, that's dark, even for you," CC said. "But yes, I've got the balloons ready and waiting."

"I'm truly sorry, CC," Noel said, turning to face her and staring at her with intensity. "I never really gave a lot of thought to everything she's put you through but…" Noel shook his head. "I'm so sorry I couldn't do anything to help."

CC gave him a half-smile, uncomfortable. "She's terrible enough to you, too."

"Yes," Noel granted, "but she mostly ignores me."

"Congratulations," CC said, walking over to grab another glass of champagne. She glared at GG over the rim of her glass. "I can't _believe_ she invited GG. She never has before."

Noel considered her with his head tipped to one side. "You know, CC, she does remarkably resemble you."

CC snapped her head to his so fast that she felt something twinge. Making a face, she rubbed her neck and asked, "And?"

"Well, if it's true that Sheffield's butler cares about you—and I'm willing to wager a bet on that, if you'd like, I could use another horse—I can imagine why he did what he did when you were in the hospital."

"BB told you that, too, huh?"

Noel nodded. "I'm just saying. I saw him there when I came to visit you. He was not well."

"How do you mean?" CC asked, curious.

"It was…well, it was one of your worse days," Noel said carefully. CC moved her eyes from his, settling them instead on the ice sculpture. "You wouldn't allow any visitors but apparently, there were days when you wouldn't let even the nurses in but you didn't mind if Niles was in there. So they suggested he try to go in, see if he could calm you down, but you…you threw him out, too. So they sedated you and Niles stood in the doorway and watched…" Noel cleared his throat, and CC saw his eyes tearing up. "I know what you went through was a thousand times worse, and that's still an understatement. But still…it was hard to see you in there, Ceec. And I only visited twice. Niles was there every day."

CC, too, cleared her throat and watched as the bubbles in her champagne raced to the surface, only to die upon achievement. No one had ever told her that he had visited every day.

"Anyhow, after seeing him like that…his pain was just raw. So choosing to sleep with a woman who looks exactly like you…I understand it," Noel said fairly. "Especially if he'd never gotten the chance to be with you."

At this, CC felt her cheeks blush and Noel's jaw dropped.

"You vixen. When?"

"A few weeks ago, after mother told me I needed to produce an heir," CC said.

Noel laughed loudly. "I think she meant an heir with Andrew, CC, not the butler."

CC nudged him and grabbed a cube of cheese. "I know that."

"So?"

"So, what?"

"How was it?" Noel asked.

"I didn't really think heterosexual intercourse was something that interested you, especially when it involves your sister."

Noel rolled his eyes. "If it was that bad…"

"It wasn't!" CC exclaimed, offended by the implications. "It was damn lovely, thank you very much."

"I thought so," Noel said, laughing again.

"You often think about Niles having sex, Noel?" she asked him.

"Ceec, I missed you," Noel told her, slinging an arm around her shoulders and squeezing her lightly.

CC smiled, a genuine smile. "Me too."

As if on cue, as though she sensed her daughter hovering closer to a sense of happiness, BB tapped a knife against her glass and the entire room turned to look at her. CC saw Andrew standing next to her and the mushrooms suddenly felt very heavy in her stomach.

"Thank you so much for attending our Christmas Eve party," BB said magnanimously. CC trailed her eyes around the room and spotted her father standing away from the crowd with Theo Wilcox, Andrew's father.

"That's your husband?" Noel asked under his breath. "That seems like a face I would have remembered."

CC rolled her eyes and refocused as she heard BB call her over. With a sigh, CC walked to the head of the room and stood next to Andrew. His jaw, she saw with satisfaction, was still an angry pink, even through the makeup he'd attempted to apply.

"And we're so happy that this coming year will be CC and Andrew's 18th wedding anniversary," BB said with a delighted smile on her face. The room applauded politely, though CC noticed that Noel and Stuart did not participate. She wondered where Niles was.

"In honor of this past year, I'm so happy to give CC a special gift." BB concluded by gesturing to a server, who stepped forward with a thin velvet jewelry box. BB opened it and showed it to the crowd, who gasped on their cue. CC saw it before her mother began fastening it around her neck; it was a lovely necklace, ornate and antique, but it was heavy and cumbersome. CC felt its weight as soon as BB took her cold fingers away. The clasp dug into her neck.

"Care to give a toast, CC?" BB asked.

CC stared at her mother and felt such a strong current of hatred flow from her that she almost said no. At the last second, though, CC cleared her throat again and held her glass aloft. "To all of you. I'm so blessed to always have a 'cock' in my last name." She raised her glass further before downing it in its entirety.

Most of the crowd recoiled or made noises of displeasure, but CC heard a familiar snort and saw Niles had just emerged from a door behind him. She felt BB reaching for her wrist, but CC slipped away and wandered off in another direction.

"CC, hi," GG said, stepping in front of her.

"GG, I—"

"Look," GG said with determination. "I haven't spoken to you in a long time, but I talked to Noel and…I honestly had no idea that anything was happening between you and the butler."

CC shifted her shoulders, attempting to offset the necklace's weight. Finally she sighed and stopped, looking her cousin in the eyes. "I know. I'm not upset with you."

"I know," GG said, brushing this off. "Noel just told me a little bit about what's been happening with you lately and…I don't know, Aunt BB is a little…anyway. What happened with me and Piles—"

"Niles," CC bristled.

"Right. What happened with him meant nothing. I was bored and he missed you. I knew that." GG laughed. "He even said your name as he came, so I think you win this competition."

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll win the rest," CC told her with a half-smile.

GG reached forward and placed her palm on CC's crossed arms. "I'm sorry you have to deal with all of this crap. But if it helps, he cares about you. Genuinely. He called me a pale imitation of you."

"Thanks, GG," CC said as her cousin walked away.

CC turned to survey the rest of the crowd, accidentally making eye contact with Niles in the far corner. He raised his eyebrows at her and turned to accept an empty flute. CC sighed as she watched him fake-smile with a man she thought might be her uncle.

What was it that made people assume that hearing Niles cared about her would help her in any way? She thought back to the more innocent, uncomplicated time of her life when she assumed Niles hated her—but no, CC thought, that wasn't right, either. She'd always known that he hadn't hated her. Resented her, probably, but there was no genuine malice from him to her. Still, aside from the occasional lingering glance or impromptu wrestling session, things had never been as complicated with Niles as they had been in the past two years.

And things had never been as complicated in her life as they'd been the past four weeks. Stopping to think about all that had transpired made her head spin. Hearing three people that day, relatively reliable sources, validate Niles's feelings for her did nothing more than make her more miserable than she'd been when she started the day.

She thought back, steadying her mind, to the afternoon they'd slept together and found herself wishing that time had stopped then. Before he left, before he looked at her with such regret, at the moment when he was inside her and something overwhelmed him so much that he paused. Or perhaps he wanted to savor the moment, perhaps he too had been wishing that time would have stopped there for him.

But CC doubted she could handle seeing him look at her with such regret one more time. Why Niles felt it was a mistake, CC didn't know, but that he thought it at all took her right back to square one: what did it mean, ultimately, that he cared for her?

She knew he cared about her. She had for quite some time. Only now, this alleged revelation meant nothing for her life.

Even worse than that—perhaps worse than anything that had happened since Thanksgiving—was the realization she had come to: that she _wanted_ Niles to care for her. That she, in fact, cared about him just as much.

In the middle of the ball room, filled with people and talking and the whisper of silks and furs, CC felt deeply alone. All at once, she perceived the chain of the necklace digging into the flesh of her neck, her chest tightening, and her heart racing. Space, she needed space, so she quickly exited the room, teetering a little on her heels as she moved around a person entering.

She made it down the hall, around one corner, and halfway down that hall before her knees gave out and she fell against the wall. Panic attacks weren't really her thing—she experienced moments of delusions and hallucinations, Dr. Bort had told her—but she knew this was what it was. Of course, she remembered nothing that Dr. Bort had told her to do in the event that she experienced one. She doubted hyperventilating against a wall in a high-class hotel was it.

Back in the Emory Roth room, Niles watched as CC tripped slightly out of the room. His brow furrowed in concern, he spared little thought to the consequences of him leaving and set down his half-full tray of drinks. Out in the cavernous hallway, Niles looked around and chose to turn right. Something was smiling at him that night, for as he turned the corner, he found her sitting on the floor, the chiffon of her dress splayed around her like a puddle.

He ran the last few steps to her when he saw the swell of her breasts rising and falling rapidly. She tugged insistently at the necklace her mother had given her; Niles saw that it had scratched her neck so much that little droplets of blood had clotted.

"CC," Niles said gently, kneeling in front of her. She stared straight ahead, still breathing rapidly, and Niles saw that sweat had formed around her hairline. He quelled the wave of panic that nearly crested in him, focusing on the woman in front of him instead. "CC," he said more firmly, trying to take her hands away from the necklace.

"No," CC resisted in a strained voice, taking her hands back to the necklace and tearing it away from her. The movement caused a deeper gouge at the back of her neck where the clasp had reluctantly snapped from the chain, but it seemed to calm her slightly. Niles slid the necklace into his pocket, out of sight.

"CC," Niles repeated. This scene reminded him so forcibly of visiting CC in the hospital that he had to take a few seconds to compose himself. But he remembered what he'd done that time and hoped it would help now. "CC, look at me."

He placed his hands on either side of her face, shifting it slightly so that she would look at him. Her eyes did not look lost, as they had the previous year, but they looked panicked, and for some reason, this calmed Niles even more.

"Focus on me," Niles directed, speaking gently but directly. He felt her breathing slow by a degree, but he worried she'd pass out unless she regulated it again. "CC, it's all right."

At this, her chin wavered and tears filled her eyes. She shook her head slightly.

"Yes, it is," Niles promised. His thumbs lightly traced her eyebrows, her cheekbones, her nose. The pad of his right thumb caught a tear as it fell. He could feel her pulse begin to race again and Niles moved closer. "CC. Stay with me. It's all right." Neither noticed Stuart's head peer around the corner, though he witnessed the scene for no more than a few seconds.

"No, it isn't," CC said, her voice tight, as though her throat were constricted. She craned her neck back, bumping her head into the wall behind her, and several strands of hair jarred loose from her twist.

Niles realized the futility of attempting to convince her that things were fine and he cursed his shortsightedness. This was a panic attack; logic had no place here. "You look beautiful tonight," he told her, smiling.

"I can't breathe, Niles," she told him, dragging her fingers down her neck as though searching for the necklace again.

"I know," he said calmly, swiping the back of his hand across her forehead. "Your dress is lovely."

CC looked down and then began tugging at that, too. "I can't _breathe_," she repeated, pulling so hard that her dress threatened to give way.

Niles closed his hands over hers, pulling them away and keeping them within his grasp. He pressed a kiss to her tightly-fisted hands. "CC, you can breathe. Trust me. You can trust me, Babcock, right?" He gave her a saucy grin and felt relieved when she smirked for a moment.

"The air is just so _heavy_," she said, her voice cracking.

"Look at me," he directed again, tilting her chin up with his index finger. "Breathe. Breathe in deeply." Niles rolled his eyes when she just stared at him. "These aren't suggestions, Babcock. Do it. Breathe in." He waited until she began to. "Then hold your breath until I tell you to exhale." He paused again for a few seconds. "Now exhale." She followed suit and he repeated this a few times until he felt her calm down.

"There you go," Niles said softly, taking his hands from around hers.

CC lunged forward and grabbed onto his hands fiercely. "Don't make me go back into that party."

"As though I could make the Abominable Babcock do anything," Niles teased. He looked at her closely, the thin slivers of scabs on the sides of her neck, the irritated red streaks from her fingers, the dried salt tracks of tears on her face, her disheveled hair. The last thing she needed at that moment was her mother. "Let's take a walk," he suggested.

"A walk?" CC repeated uncertainly.

"Yes," Niles said, standing up. "In fact, I have an idea. Follow me." Her breathing had returned to normal, but trembling had taken its place so Niles offered her his hand and helped her stand. She slid her hand immediately into his, holding it tightly, and Niles privately marveled that such a simple gesture could mean so much to a person.

He led her down the labyrinth of halls, and CC grew calmer as they ventured further from the party. He pressed the 'up' button on the elevator, and she leaned against him as they waited. After the doors slid open, they stepped into the thankfully empty elevator and Niles hit the topmost button, sliding in a key they'd given him at the beginning of the night. Happily Niles saw that his plan would work.

"How many times have you done that for me?" CC asked quietly, staring as the buttons lit up.

"What do you mean?"

"You seem practiced enough. Did you do it at the Place?"

Niles nodded, unsure of what else to say.

"Thank you," she said, her voice a hair above a whisper.

"You don't need to thank me," Niles said. "I'd do it for anyone who would need it."

"You would," she agreed, nodding. "But not everyone would do it for me."

Niles wondered how she would take it if he, at that very moment, swept her into his arms and protected her for the rest of his life. Before he could decide to do so, the doors opened onto the top floor of the hotel, which consisted of only a short hallway with a few doors. Clearly not meant to be an area where guests would find themselves, it was sparsely decorated.

Still holding her hand, he stepped off the elevator and walked to the end of the hallway. He climbed the few stairs he encountered there and pushed on the door labeled 'roof access.' A brisk wind greeted them, and as soon as she stood next to him, Niles slid off his tuxedo jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

"I figured you'd need air," Niles said to her unasked question.

CC nodded, grateful, and took in her surroundings. The roof was bare, save for exhaust pipes and vents, but it allowed for a phenomenal view of the skyline. CC stared at the bare area above Central Park, finding the unexpected blankness calming. She reached blindly for Niles's hand again and twined her fingers with his.

"I don't see how any of this is all right," she admitted, her breath fogging around her.

"Well," Niles considered, stepping closer to her in case it shielded any of the slight but persistent wind. "Here, right now, is all right."

CC nodded, taking her bottom lip into her mouth. He led her across the roof to a wide metal box. He pressed his palm to it, found it cold, and hopped on top. CC followed suit and Niles smiled when she slid close enough to him that their thighs touched.

"If I were to apologize for every remark I've made about you after having met your mother, would you accept it?" Niles asked. "I don't know how you grew up with that woman."

CC blew out a breath of air, watching it stream out. "I didn't really grow up with her. She left after I was born, remember."

"Yes, but living with that threatening presence all your life…" Niles shivered exaggeratedly. "You're stronger than I ever gave you credit for."

"Says the man who just talked me through a panic attack," CC muttered.

Niles nudged her shoulder with his. "Having a panic attack doesn't mean you aren't strong."

CC shrugged, dismissive of this idea. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, watching the lights of Manhattan flicker on or off, depending on what the occupants of each room were doing. With a dawning surprise, though, CC found that she didn't wish she were one of the random, anonymous occupants of another room in another part of the city. She was content being right here, freezing on a rooftop with him. This conclusion surprised and troubled her.

"Niles," she suddenly said, her voice louder than she'd thought it would be. Niles started slightly.

"Yes?"

"Do you…well, remember the day a few weeks ago, when we…had sex?" CC stammered, keeping her eyes fixed on the slab of darkness that was Central Park.

"I…yes, of course," Niles replied.

"Why did you look at me like that, after?"

Niles fell into silence, wondering how best to explain it to her. He didn't need to ask what she meant.

Enough time passed that CC felt the awkwardness of it push her into speaking again. "It's just that…you looked like you regretted it."

"I did," Niles agreed.

"Oh."

Niles took a few more moments to formulate his thoughts before he realized how she must have interpreted his agreement. He turned slightly, bumping his knee into hers, so that he could face her. "No, Miss Babcock, not for the reasons you imagine. I don't regret what happened, but rather _why_ it happened."

"So why did it happen?"

Niles sighed, not very eager to voice his response. But he looked at her again and saw the tracks of her tears glisten slightly in the lights from the city. His pride could take a hit, he decided, but she needed to hear the truth. "I wanted to give you some comfort, but I also wanted to prove to you that I do care about you."

"You regret that?"

"No, I'm getting to the part I regret." He sighed. "I wanted to…bloody hell, I sound like a cad…I wanted to _claim_ you. I hated the idea that you were married and that some other man had…not the _rights_ to you, but you're his, and he's yours, and I bloody hated the idea of it. So some base part of me thought that if we had sex, then you'd be mine, even for an afternoon."

Niles looked away, down at the gravelly rooftop, and had never hated himself more than he did in that instant. He'd treated her in the same manner as nearly everyone else in her life did, and he was ashamed of himself.

"That isn't terrible, Niles," CC told him.

"Yes, it is. I had always thought that the first time we were together, it would either be because we fought so intensely that we'd have sex right there, wherever we were, or because we both wanted to…to be together in that way," Niles finished lamely.

"Those aren't mutually exclusive," CC told him playfully. Niles glanced over at her and was surprised to find a bright smile on her face. "Look, if you want to feel less sorry for yourself, I suppose I did it for the wrong reasons, too. I—"

"—found my animal magnetism too hard to refuse, I know," Niles filled in with a sympathetic nod.

CC laughed, a sudden, loud sound from her core. Niles reveled in it. "No, Molly Maid, because I wanted to piss off my mother."

"So you were thinking of your mother the entire time?"

"No, Niles, at some point, you rendered coherent thought impossible for me," CC told him.

Niles saw a flash of cleavage through a gap in the tuxedo coat and was momentarily taken over by a wild urge to feel her warm skin again.

"I just thought that you regretted what happened, and that was…kind of a terrible thing to feel," CC admitted, her voice once again small.

Niles took her hand and realized how cold her fingers were. "No. Never." He pressed a kiss to her fingers. "We should get back inside. You're cold."

"No, not yet," CC said. "I don't want to face any of that."

"You don't have to face your mother right now," Niles told her gently as he hopped off of their makeshift seat.

"Not just her," CC told him, sliding off as well. "Any of it."

"You have to face it eventually," Niles pointed out.

"I know, but…"

Niles took her other hand, both to force her attention on him and to warm it. "Miss Babcock, you can say no. You can refuse what they're asking you to do."

"No, I can't."

"Yes, you can," Niles insisted. He suppressed the annoyance from his voice, feeling that tonight was not a night to show irritation with her, but he felt it nonetheless.

"No, _I_ can't," CC said. "I hate the idea of staying married to him. I hate the idea of having kids with him. But I hate the idea of not being a Babcock, of my brother not being my brother, of not having any money."

"Which idea do you hate more?"

"It's equal."

"You would truly give up your freedom to create the life you want so that you could be a part of the family who would force you to give up that very freedom?" Niles asked in disbelief. He couldn't hide the disgust from his voice, and CC didn't blame him.

"Are you surprised to discover that I actually am that mercenary?"

Niles shook his head. "I don't believe that's it. What do you want?"

"What—"

"What Miss Grace was talking about. The _locus amoenus_. What's yours? You said a world where you could figure it out on your own. You _can_."

CC stared at Niles in silence. Niles felt fidgety and desperate, as though an invisible timer were running down and every second that ticked off meant an even smaller chance for her, for them.

"What do you _want_, CC?" Niles asked her, his voice so many things at once.

"I don't know!" CC cried, taking her hands from his and crossing her arms. "I've never been in a situation where I've been able to consider it before. No one has ever come up to me and said, CC Babcock, what do you want from your life? Or what do _you_ want to study in school? What do _you_ want to be? Who do _you_ want to marry? Half the time I can't get dressed in the morning without thinking about what someone might want me to wear that day."

His irritation slipped away with the wind when he considered her life from that perspective. His life had not been filled with choice, but he'd at least been raised by parents who had allowed him choices whenever they could.

"So, yes, my happy place is a world where I could figure out what it is I want from my own life," CC finished, pulling his jacket around her more tightly. It gaped in the shoulders and looked too long so that the overall effect was a child playing dress-up. "But like the little one said, it's not the feasibility of the idea but just the _idea_ of the idea. So it doesn't matter."

"It does matter."

"What's yours?" she asked. "What do you want?"

Now Niles stared at her, about to tell her that it would take him a little longer to take stock of his life and consider what he truly wanted from it, when the answer came to him so easily and simply that he knew it had been what he'd wanted for some time. "For you to be happy."

The sincerity of his voice negated any possibility of her asking if that was _truly_ what he wanted. She knew it was.

Still, that didn't help her figure out how to respond to it. Tears swam in her eyes and clouded her vision and simultaneously, she wanted to leave, to embrace him, and to take him downstairs and kiss him in front of her mother. She realized that if she only reordered her list, she actually _could_ accomplish all of those things.

"Let's go," Niles said, placing his hand on her back and directing her towards the door. He used the same key to unlock it and walked back to the elevator.

Niles dropped her off in the lobby, promising to go back to the ballroom and retrieve her things. CC nodded, relinquishing his tuxedo jacket, and stood off to the side.

As Niles left the lobby, Stuart entered it and saw his daughter standing alone. He had never thought himself the worst parent—several of his business counterparts hadn't even lived in the same home as their children growing up—but when he saw the mark of a miserable evening on his daughter, her puffy eyes, strange scratches on her neck, Stuart felt a boulder of guilt settle in his stomach. He walked over to her and placed a warm hand on her arm.

"Hello, kitten," Stuart said kindly.

"Hi. Leaving?" CC asked.

"I think so. Your mother has made it awkward enough for me," Stuart told her. "Are you?"

CC nodded. "Niles is getting my things."

Stuart elected not to tell CC what he'd witnessed between them. He saw it as a private moment and one he'd had no business seeing. But he also saw, with his own eyes, how much Sheffield's butler cared for his daughter, and it instilled in him his own wayward-fatherly desire to take care of her, too. "He's a good man."

CC looked at him, surprised. "He can be."

"Then I think you should let him be," Stuart said, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "Don't worry about anything, kitten. I'll take care of it."

"What do you mean?" CC asked. Stuart only smiled enigmatically and waved as he left the hotel.

Niles returned with her light gray wool coat and her clutch purse. He helped her into it and then turned to her. "Let's go."

"You're leaving? Won't you get in trouble?" she asked as he put on his coat as well.

"Yes, I'm worried that your mother will fire me and never seek to employ me for a catering event again," Niles remarked sarcastically. He slid his arm around her waist and escorted her out of the hotel. CC gave her ticket to the valet standing in wait and turned to Niles, who still had his arm around her.

"Will you come over?" she asked. Niles smiled and nodded. "I won't even charge my usual fare."

His grin widened. "And here I was, saving that $25 for nothing."

"I can only imagine how long it took you to reach that amount, so I'm happy to let you keep it," she said. She handed a wad of bills to the valet, who took it eagerly and walked away, hoping she wouldn't realize her mistake. They both got into her car and CC drove off, the several blocks to her penthouse slipping away quickly given the lack of traffic on Christmas Eve.

She parked her car and they took the garage elevator up to her floor, the doors opening directly into her penthouse. Chester went mad at the sight of Niles, hopping eagerly around until Niles agreed to pick him up, whereupon Chester began intently attempting to kiss Niles's face.

"He acts like I neglect him," CC said, rolling her eyes as she stepped over to the hall closet and hung up her coat, flicking on the lights in the process. Niles managed to slip the coat off of him without letting go of Chester, who seemed intent to stay in Niles's arms for the rest of his life. CC hung up his as well and then stood, watching her dog sniff Niles's tuxedo.

"Are you feeling better?" Niles asked worriedly.

CC nodded, her face tinged in red as she thought back to her evening. "Yes. Thanks." She cleared her throat. "But really, it is hard to breathe in this thing, so I'm going to get more comfortable." She pulled at the dress again, as though demonstrating how her fingers barely fit between the fabric and her skin, but Niles couldn't help but notice how the movement affected her breasts.

"At least one of us can get more comfortable," Niles grumbled as he slid off his tuxedo jacket and loosened the bow tie.

"Oh, that's right," CC said regretfully, eyeing his clothing. "You can leave if you're uncomfortable."

"I'll power through," Niles promised, reaching back and undoing his cummerbund, sighing as he did so. "Now I can breathe, too."

"Well, really, Niles, it's only fabric. It can only hold in so much," CC pointed out with a laugh as she walked towards her bedroom, slipping off her heels as she did so.

Niles slipped off his shoes, pulled his shirt out of his pants, and completely slid off the bowtie, all while still holding Chester. "Well, it'll have to do, little man," Niles muttered to him, picking up his discarded tuxedo pieces and piling them on her dining room table.

"Is that how a gentleman treats his garments?" CC asked with a _tsk_, returning from her bedroom wearing red flannel pajama bottoms and a soft, dark gray t-shirt.

"You can burn them," Niles said, his head drooped over the back of the couch with his eyes closed. He raised his head a few inches and peered at her out of one eye. "Is that how a lady dresses in front of a gentleman?"

"It's how this lady does," CC replied, sinking onto the couch next to him. She grabbed the remote and turned on the television, settling on a black and white Christmas movie that had just started. Niles set Chester on CC's lap and stood, flicking off the lights and grabbing the soft blanket from the back of the sofa. He resettled next to her and draped the blanket across all of them.

Niles glanced over 15 minutes into the movie and saw CC's eyelids growing heavy. Smiling, he tugged her closer to him, casting an apologetic look at Chester who had been deposed, and settled her head against his shoulder.

"Is this how you wanted to spend Christmas Eve?" she asked with a yawn.

Niles moved his head and unwittingly inhaled the scent of her hair. Impetuously, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Yes."

She sat up suddenly but still found herself leaning against him. "I'm sorry I never told you about Andrew."

"If I didn't know you, I might not believe that you actually forgot about him, but I do, so I do," Niles told her.

But she shook her head. "That's not just what I mean. What you said before. About how I never told you and you never really had a chance with me."

Niles felt his heart squeeze. He still stood by what he said to her earlier that night—that here with her right now, things were all right—but he understood that it changed little. He pushed back the strands of hair that had fallen loose. "Well, Miss Babcock, I don't think I had much of a chance with you regardless."

The sad tone in his voice made her ache. "Don't say that, Niles."

"You're a millionaire heiress and I'm a butler. There's a reason so many romance novels revolve around it: because it never happens in real life," Niles told her.

CC sat up fully and her body protested against the loss of warm contact. "You think that's true?"

"Well, you know a lot of heiresses and I know a lot of butlers. Are any of them together?"

"No."

"There you go," Niles said, unintentionally becoming grumpier as the conversation continued. CC looked over at the television screen as a little girl sat on Santa's lap in the store. "I know it bothers you that I'm a butler."

"Oh? How do you know that?" she asked, challenging him. She almost always lost these challenges, these attempts to prove to him that he didn't know her that well. And yet she kept pressing.

"That aristocratic nose of yours wrinkles whenever you see me doing something especially butler-esque," Niles said, tapping the spot on her nose that he meant.

CC considered protesting that it didn't bother her _that_ much but she knew he'd see through the lie. "All right. It bugs me. But only because there's this one side of you that's smart and witty and—sometimes—very charming, but then I see that same person scrubbing a toilet and I just don't get it."

Niles nodded. "Just as when I look at you, I see a beautiful, intelligent, terrifying woman who gets what she wants from directors, backers, and choreographers, and then I see that same person agree to decisions which will make her miserable without any sort of fight."

It was CC's turn to nod. "That's fair."

Niles took a few moments to build up his courage and then realized he had very little to lose. "Would you be with me if you weren't married to Andrew?"

"I've followed my thoughts down roads like that before, Niles, and it never helps."

"Am I asking to help you? I'm asking to know. Would you be with me? Would you at least want to try?"

CC hesitated, but he'd done so much for her that evening, let alone for several years now, and he deserved to know. "Yes."

Niles's heart soared and shot through the window, shouting all over Manhattan and the entire tri-state area. "Even though I'm a butler?"

"Yes," she admitted, surprised at her admission and the simple truth of it. Did she dislike the idea of him serving others? Absolutely. Did it change anything, really, in the long run? No.

"You're right. It doesn't help," Niles said, exaggeratedly glowering.

CC laughed and then look intently at Niles. "Are you going to kiss me now?"

Niles looked at her somewhat ruefully and sadly, no exaggeration this time, and lifted his left hand to settle in her hair. He spared another poignant look into her eyes, those beautiful dark blue eyes, and then leaned forward, pressing his lips to hers sweetly. She rested her palms against his neck. When he pulled away, he saw tears in her eyes, and when she saw them in his, too, hers threatened to spill over.

He pressed his forehead to hers and shut his eyes tightly. "I know," he whispered softly.

She felt again the injustice of her situation and felt an urging to rail against it. But this time, that meant something very different for her. She slid the rest of her arms around his neck and almost sighed when he returned the embrace tightly. "Will you stay?"

"Of course," he said, his voice muffled in her shoulder.

She pulled away from the embrace and impulsively kissed him. She ended the kiss and ruffled his hair gently. "I might as well do the things I want to do while I can still do them," she reasoned at his questioning look.

"Feel free to do that whenever it strikes your fancy," Niles told her, yawning.

"Come on," CC said, standing up and offering her hand. "Let's go to bed."

Niles hoped that however addled his mind became as he aged, he would never forget this moment, when CC Babcock stood up in her pajamas, gave him her hand, and requested that he come to bed. He followed, happily linking their hands, and chuckled as Chester hopped off the couch to follow them as well.

"You sure your regular bedfellow won't get jealous?" Niles asked as CC turned off the television and guided him in the darkness.

"Oh, he will," CC replied assuredly. "But he'll get over it. It's a big bed." She turned on the lights in her spacious bedroom, picking up Chester and placing him atop the fluffy white bedspread. She led Niles to her en-suite, indicating where a new spare toothbrush was, and allowed him privacy to get ready for bed. She dawdled in her room, playing for a few moments with Chester, when Niles returned and they switched places.

She brushed her teeth and face, grimacing when the hot water slid down her neck and into her cuts there. She gazed at them in the mirror, tilting her head from side to side, and then winced when she realized there was a painful tug on the back of her neck. Sliding open a drawer, she pulled out her antiseptic cream and walked back into her room.

Niles stood up from the edge of her bed, nervous, until she reached out and handed him the cream.

"Can you put this on my neck?" She craned her neck to allow him greater access.

"Am I your servant now too?" Niles grumbled, untwisting the cap.

"Weren't you always, Niles?" CC asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

Admitting to the truth in that statement felt both impossible and painful, given the situation, so he simply applied the cream to the scratches on the sides and back of her neck, blowing on them to ease the stinging. He saw goosebumps erupt on the skin of her shoulders that he could see, so he leaned down and pressed a small kiss to her back.

"Thanks," she mumbled, taking the cream back and putting it away.

They moved towards the bed in unison, each walking to their own side. They pulled back the sheets together, Chester jumping up and alternately scratching the sheets and hiding his head beneath them. Niles laughed at it and CC sighed.

"Every night," she said with a shake of her head. Niles slid between the sheets and let out a low moan, letting his legs slide against the soft cotton. CC eyed him, still sitting up with only her legs under the covers. "Do you want some alone time with my bed, Niles?"

"Don't be a tease," Niles said, his eyes still closed in rapture. "I understand why you want to stay rich. I'd never want to be without these sheets, either."

CC leaned over and turned off her lights, sliding under the covers pulling them up over her shoulders. Niles reached over and pulled her to him, supporting her head under his left arm and draping his right around her waist.

"I lied earlier," Niles said, his head resting right behind hers. His breath blew a few strands of hair into her face. "This is how I wanted to spend Christmas Eve."

CC pressed a kiss to the arm supporting her head, and Niles fell asleep with a smile on his face.


	7. 7

[A/N: We have arrived at the penultimate chapter. The reviews have left me speechless. You guys rock.]

7.

Niles's internal clock awoke him at 5:45am the next morning. At some point, CC had rolled over to lay on her stomach while Niles had slept on his side, his hand warming her back. He experienced a happiness so powerful that it nearly overcame him; the only thing holding him back was what CC would say if she awoke to find him weeping in her bed. He wished to gather her in his arms and inhale her scent. He wanted to spend the rest of Christmas in her bed.

But as CC would surely remind him, he was a butler. And the Sheffield family would awake on Christmas morning expecting a salver of breakfast foods awaiting them.

He sat up and leaned over CC, pausing when he heard a low growl. Niles grinned and extended his hand to Chester, assuring him he meant no harm. Chester licked Niles's fingers once, placated, and went back to sleep.

"Babcock," Niles said, kissing behind CC's ear. "I have to go."

"Hmm," CC mumbled.

"I have to leave," Niles said again, running his hand from her shoulder and resting in the hollow of her waist.

CC rolled over, transferring his hand from her waist to her stomach, and stretched like a cat. "Wha?"

"I have to leave."

"Hmm?" In the pre-dawn light sneaking through her curtains, Niles saw her open one eye and look around, confused. "What? What time is it?"

"5:45."

"I will kill you," she said, reaching to pull the covers over her head.

"I know. But I really have to leave."

She threw the covers back and stared at him sleepily. "Why?"

"I have to make breakfast for the Sheffield's," he explained, reaching over to cup her waist again.

"Stay here. I'll pay you," she offered, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling him back to lay down again.

Niles laughed and wrapped his arms around her. "Thanks, love, but that's your line of work, not mine." He pressed another kiss to the top of her head and slid from her embrace, but her arms tightened again. With a sad sigh, Niles settled his head on the pillow again and said softly, "I know."

"You know what?"

"That when I leave, things go back to normal," he told her.

This awoke CC a little more fully and she opened her mouth to respond. Niles covered it with a deep kiss, holding onto her anxiously. He broke away from the kiss, leaving her out of breath.

"We'll talk later," Niles promised. "But I truly have to go." CC moved to push back the covers but Niles stopped her. "No, no. I'll lock up behind me. Go back to sleep."

She spared a grateful smile to him even as her eyelids drifted shut again.

The sun had fully risen and even CC's thick curtains couldn't hide the light any longer. She blinked her eyes in rapid succession and stretched, accidentally bumping into Chester. He made an annoyed sound but refused to move. CC rubbed her face tiredly, pulling her covers up over her shoulders fully and reveling in the warmth. It took her a few moments to identify what she was feeling.

She was happy. It was an emotion with which she was not entirely familiar, but she knew how to place it.

With this came the realization of what she had to do next. How could there be any possible alternative for her? There was no choice between a family who showed a passing interest in her and a man whose idea of paradise was seeing her happy.

Losing her inheritance was not ideal, but she could survive on a couple of dozen millions. Maybe Noel would even help her out.

As with most major decisions, once CC had made up her mind, it seemed utterly ridiculous that it had taken her this long. She toyed with who to tell first but she couldn't resist: she had to tell Niles. Besides, she wanted to see him again.

In her excitement, she knocked the phone and lamp over; in her irritation over doing so, she threw her alarm clock across the room, too. It took her two attempts to dial the private line that only rang in the kitchen. Unfortunately, Niles didn't answer and she had no time to deliberate whether she wanted to leave a message or not.

"Niles, hi. It's Miss—CC—Miss Babcock," she stammered. She swore under her breath; which button did she press to re-record her message? She thought it was 3 but then again—"Oh, crap, the message is still recording. Look. I…you know, I've been thinking and…I could do it. I want to do it. I can be poor. I mean—I don't want to be _poor_, of course, but I meant…what I want to do is…Christ, I'm coming over." She hung up the phone and threw it back on the ground.

After weeks of terrible, dragging misery, CC felt light. She felt _free_. She scratched Chester's stomach a dozen or so times and peppered him with kisses until he growled in frustration. After hopping out of bed, she hurried into her closet and slid on a pair of jeans and a red sweater. She slipped on a pair of black flats and nearly skipped into her bathroom to pull her hair back into a quick bun.

"Come on, Chester, you can come with me today," CC said. At that, Chester perked up and jumped off the bed, following so close to CC's heels that his claws scraped her a few times before they even reached the front door. "Calm down," she admonished as she pulled open the coat closet, pulling down her white wool coat and putting her black leather bag over shoulder.

A brief moment of uncertainty occurred when she slid into her car, deposited Chester on the passenger's seat momentarily, and started her car. By the time she reached the Sheffield's, it would only be around 8am. Surely the family would still be eating breakfast, if they'd even started.

Shaking her head, CC kept up a stream of silent encouragement. Niles had been through enough these past few weeks; come to think of it, so had she. They both needed this.

"Chester," CC said to the pup now perched happily on her lap, "that's the first time I've ever thought of someone first. I'm _growing_, Chester."

Yes, sideways, her inner voice—always sounding suspiciously British—teased. She parallel parked a few houses down from the Sheffield townhouse and turned her car off. Only then did she hear a persistent vibration coming from her bag.

She plucked her cell phone free just as the call ended. Scrolling through her missed calls, she saw that she'd missed 7 calls from her father. This filled her with unease.

"CC, hello, where have you been?" Stuart asked after a half-ring.

"Sleeping?" CC said. "Daddy, if this is bad news, can it please wait until after Christmas because—"

"No, no, kitten, it's not," Stuart interrupted hastily. "Where are you? I just pulled up to your penthouse."

"I'm driving to the Sheffield's. I mean, I've already parked my car here."

"Stay there. I'll be there in 5 minutes."

CC pulled her phone away from her ear and looked down at Chester, who'd already started whimpering in his eagerness to leave the car. She retrieved his leash from her bag and clipped it to his collar, tossing her keys into her purse and exiting the car. As Chester trotted around, sniffing and peeing alternately, CC kept a keen eye out for any cars.

Surprisingly true to his word, Stuart arrived in a chauffeured Lincoln no more than 5 minutes after they'd hung up. He instructed the driver to wait and hopped out of the vehicle, meeting his daughter on the sidewalk. He looked at her and sighed.

"Niles," Fran called out. When she received no response, she flexed her adenoids and hurled out, "NIII-YULLLLES!"

"Mrs. Sheffield, I heard you the first time," Niles said, tapping his ear to test whether it still worked.

"Oh. Sorry," Fran said sheepishly. "I just thought you'd want to see this." She gestured for Niles to enter the vestibule, where Fran put her face up against the wrought iron again.

"I don't care if Roger Clinton's wife tossed him out again," Niles said with a sigh. "The pancakes are almost done."

"Pancakes? There are pancakes?" she asked. She shook her head. "No, this isn't about Roger—but remind me to tell you later what I heard them arguing about yesterday."

Niles acquiesced and walked over to stand next to her. "It's Miss Babcock."

"She got here 5 minutes ago. Her father just walked up. I wonder what he's doing here."

"Probably something new he needs to tell her about the whole arrangement," Niles guessed, biting the inside of his cheek with worry. He scolded himself to not be so selfish: there was nothing to worry about, not for him personally. He knew how the story ended. If anything, he should be worried about CC and what this news could possibly be.

Fran smacked his chest hard. "Also remind me to thank you for _not_ telling me anything about Miss Babcock's marriage when you've known the whole story for a while now."

Niles scowled and rubbed his chest. The two watched as Stuart continued to explain something to his daughter, whose face was inscrutable. Niles wondered if, perhaps, this news wasn't so bad; CC was so quick to anger that she often jumped there before there was anything to be angry about. But she didn't appear angry now.

From their position, they couldn't see all of Stuart's face, but both saw his ears move slightly: he was smiling. CC's jaw dropped and so did Chester's leash; Stuart lunged before the pup could scamper away and held onto it while he continued explaining something to CC, his free arm touching her forearm lightly. He pulled his hand back, reached into his pocket, and handed her a piece of paper. Her vivid blue eyes scanned it quickly.

Suddenly, CC's face brightened and her entire face became rapturous with a smile. Niles and Fran couldn't hear what she was saying, though they could tell she was saying it loudly. But even the most inexperienced lip-reader would be able to distinguish what four-letter word CC uttered before she threw her arms around her father and squeezed him tightly. He staggered a bit before returning the embrace, unintentionally tugging on Chester's leash, who strained to mark a part of the tree he'd missed.

Niles grasped Fran's elbow. She turned to look at him, trying not to hope for anything…but she'd noticed that her friend hadn't slept in his room the previous night. She found herself wishing it could work out as ardently as he'd hoped she and Maxwell would.

"Oh, here she comes!" Fran said, dragging Niles away from the door. As much as Niles wanted to hear the news, he understood why Fran pulled him away. He didn't know how CC would feel knowing they'd watched a moment like that. Part of him also reverted to the grand tradition of why their relationship had progressed so slowly: he didn't know how CC was going to react to him, didn't know how much of last night was really her or just something she needed because she felt panicked and trapped.

"Right," Niles agreed, scampering off with Fran back into the dining room. The entire family sat around the table, in various states of hungry agitation. Niles suddenly remembered his pancakes and ran into the kitchen, tossing the tough black circles into the trash. He considered starting another batch but knew it would be a waste; he took the remaining food back into the dining room and announced that breakfast was ready.

Only Niles noticed that Fran hadn't begun piling her plate, unusual given that she was often the first to grab the hottest food and choicest-looking pieces. Niles's stomach jolted when he heard the front door close in the distance.

Maxwell looked up, curious. "Hmm. I suppose it's CC?"

Fran shrugged, smiling too brightly. Max noticed this, however, and looked at his wife questioningly.

Before anything else happened, the dining room door burst open and Maxwell jumped and then cringed when he saw a bit of the drywall flake off where the door hit it. As soon as she'd entered the room, her eyes found Niles and hadn't released them yet. He stood in his usual corner, uncertain, but couldn't spare a second for thought because CC crossed the room in a few strides and threw herself at him, capturing his lips.

Silverware clattered to plates in shock and Fran blew her nose nasally, but CC heard none of this as Niles, for a split second hesitant, began returning her kiss. She pulled away from the kiss much sooner than she wanted to, but she needed to relay what her father had just told her.

"Hi," she said to him, half-excitedly and half-sheepishly.

"Hi," Niles said, but he couldn't be sure if he had. Speech might have been rendered impossible by CC's proximity and the surprise kiss she'd just given him. It was highly likely he'd only returned an _ungh_ sound.

"Let's go talk," she suggested, grabbing his hand as though she'd been doing it for years and dragging him into the kitchen. As soon as the kitchen door swung shut, though, CC worried her lip. "Actually—should we go somewhere else? I don't want everyone listening in…"

Niles thought back to a few moments ago when Fran had pulled him away from the door. "I don't think Mrs. Sheffield will let anyone listen in."

CC didn't question this assertion; the words she needed to say threatened to spill out in a garbled mess if she didn't tell him soon. "Niles, I…I don't know what to say first."

"You could start by why you're here?" he suggested, not wanting to admit that he knew she'd just been speaking to her father.

"Yes, right, of course. I was just talking to my father outside and he…oh my God, Niles, he fixed everything!"

"Everything?"

"Yes! He met with Andrew's father right after he left the party last night and they made a new business deal—it turns out the partnership isn't as beneficial for our side as it is for theirs—which doesn't surprise me in the least, you know, I've looked into their business model and seen some of their investors, so I figured it was just a—"

"CC," Niles interrupted with a smile. Hers had infected his own.

"Right. So my father threatened to rescind the entire deal if they didn't agree to dissolve the previous agreement. And Mr. Wilcox agreed!" CC screeched.

"So that means…" Niles began, his heart pounding.

"My father's looking into divorce proceedings for me but he's having his lawyer look into the possibility of an annulment. I mean, we never even _lived_ together, we never consummated the marriage, and Daddy's lawyer says he could draft it to look like we'd been forced into it, but there's the statute of limitations to consider. His lawyer said it's such a unique case, though, that—" CC continued, lost in the details again.

"CC."

"Yes! I don't have to be married anymore!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together once. "But my father even said that if it _hadn't_ worked, he was still planning on something else." She produced the paper he'd seen her father give her and handed it to him.

Niles read it, but in the haze of information (and still a little cloudy from the kiss, truth be told), he could barely make sense of it. "This reads like a bloody law review."

"Because it's a contract! He's making me CFO of our family's company!" Her face glowed with utter, absolute happiness, and Niles could only stare at her, mesmerized. He'd never seen her look like this before. She continued talking for a few minutes, explaining about how the former CFO planned to retire as well and that Stuart had always intended to utilize her in the family business. "I don't even have to _quit_ here, it's such an easy job, I could do it in my sleep. But he put it in place in case my mother tried to pull anything—so I'll always have my money, you see."

Niles smiled at her, her excitement making him a little giddy too. "I'm so happy for you."

She grinned at him, tucking the paper back into her coat pocket. "I know you are. That's why I came over here to talk to you this morning."

"But you didn't speak to your father until after you'd arrived here," Niles said, confused.

CC raised her eyebrows at him. "You are _the_ biggest yenta in the world."

Niles waved this aside. "You mean you came here before your father even told you the news?"

She nodded, and though her excitement didn't change, he sensed a frisson of nervousness had entered her. She twisted her fingers together in front of her abdomen. "I came to talk to you. About…I decided that…well, I wanted to…" CC squeezed her fingers in frustration. This was turning out worse than her voicemail. Her eyes popped up to his face. Her voicemail! "Didn't you get the message I left?"

"Message? No," Niles said, turning towards the butler's pantry where the phone and answering machine stood. He saw a red blinking light and walked over, pressing play.

CC cringed in embarrassment as she heard her own voice come from the tiny speaker in the machine. _"Niles, hi. It's Miss—CC—Miss Babcock. Shit…..Oh, crap, the message is still recording. Look. I…you know, I've been thinking and…I could do it. I want to do it. I can be poor. I mean—I don't want to be_ poor_, of course, but I meant…what I want to do is…Christ, I'm coming over."_

Niles smirked and looked over at you. "Always so well spoken." Her cheeks flushed. "May I ask what you meant by you 'want to do it'?"

CC looked at him and knew what she wanted to say. "I did some thinking this morning after you left." Niles ached to ask if it hurt, but the rest of him demanded to know what she had to say. "I don't know what my happy place is. But I know you're in it." She took a breath and felt her chest quiver slightly. "You make me happy, Niles. I mean, you make me miserable sometimes, of course, but you make me happy. You _want_ to see me happy. You're the only person I've ever met who hasn't asked something of me, who doesn't see me as a means to an end. And you said that you want to see me happy, and since you make me happy, I want to make you happy, so when I said I want to do it, I want to make you happy by…making me happy…?" She sighed and rubbed her face. "Should I try again? The _locus amoenus_ is—"

Throughout her speech, Niles had stepped closer to her, and now, he let out a delighted laugh and pulled her into his arms. "Are you saying you want to be with me?"

"Yes," she said in a small voice; she barely got it out before he kissed her again. He captured the 'yes' in his mouth and reveled in the taste of it. By far, the most delicious thing he'd ever had. They kissed for several moments before CC pulled away and ruffled his hair giddily. "What?" she protested at the look on his face. "Last night, you said I could feel free to do that whenever I wanted."

Niles laughed again. How wonderful it was for her, she thought, to make him laugh. It was her second favorite sound she could cause him to make. "I meant kiss me, love, but I hereby give you permission to touch me when-, how-, and wherever you want to."

CC obliged and kissed him again, pressing her hands lightly to his face. She pivoted her hips against his, leaning closer, and giving every indication she wanted to continue when Niles paused.

"What about your mother, though?"

She let out another delighted laugh. "I can't believe I forgot to tell you. It's my favorite part." At Niles's pointed look, CC corrected herself, "My second favorite part. You're my favorite part." She smoothed the lapels of his suit and continued, "Apparently she was trying to sweeten the deal for herself in all of those meetings. I think she was trying to get a cut of the profits from the business arrangement. My father found out and nipped that in the bud."

"How?" Niles asked, admittedly caring less about all of this information than the happiness it brought her.

"He called her after the party and told her that if she doesn't stop trying to meddle with the business, he'll get the Board to agree to give her shares to him." Niles stared at her and CC rolled her eyes. "She'd get less money, basically."

"Is money the only thing that Babcocks care about?"

"Mostly. I'm so excited I don't have to be poor!" CC said, squeezing his cheeks together to make his mouth form a lopsided _o_. "But it was actually something my mother said when we were out to lunch that reminded me—she said I shouldn't eat carbs because Babcock women can't handle them and then reminded me that _she_ isn't a Babcock woman. Her family is well off, don't get me wrong, but nothing like the Babcocks. So I'm sure she's scared enough to retreat into her cave for at least a little while."

Niles shook his head. "I'm not sure if I want to get involved with this family. Poor people aren't this complicated."

CC grabbed his arm as he pretended to turn away. "If I have to remind you of the heavenly sheets on my bed to make you stay, I will."

It made him unspeakably happy to know that even though they were playing, she still, in her own way, showed her feelings for him. He slung his arms around her, settling his hands on her hips. "I only need to be reminded of the heavenly figure between them," he said against her mouth before kissing the corner of her lips, a surprisingly sensitive spot.

They spent a few moments lost in each other, exchanging soft kisses and little laughs about nothing, when Niles remembered the family in the next room.

"We should go tell them," Niles suggested. "Not everything, of course—whatever you want to tell them—but to her credit, Mrs. Sheffield is rather worried about you."

CC nodded, reluctantly separating from his embrace, and turned to face the dining room door. She held out her palm wordlessly to him, and Niles felt almost woozy with happiness. They walked into the dining room, physically presenting themselves as a couple, and Fran paused, a bite of sausage that the family had finally convinced her to start eating hovering halfway to her mouth.

"I'm getting divorced!" CC exclaimed. Fran yelped and threw the sausage over her shoulder, ignoring the splat and grease mark it left against the silk wallpaper. Niles, laughing at CC, ignored it too. The former nanny stood and wrapped both Niles and CC in a tight group hug.

Maxwell stood, too, and offered a friendly clap on CC's shoulder. "Er…congratulations, CC, I suppose? One doesn't usually give congratulations on divorces."

"In this case, you absolutely do," CC said with a brilliant smile, and Maxwell grinned and gave CC a friendly hug. Like Niles, he'd rarely seen his business partner—no, one of his oldest friends, as Fran had reminded him—so happy, and he found it quite delightful.

The kids gathered around like sheep, not knowing enough about the situation to say much but still happy with the celebratory atmosphere all the same.

"So then what's this?" Fran couldn't resist asking, pointing to their linked hands.

Niles squeezed her hand, passing the answer off to her, and CC faltered. Why was he making her tell? He was clearly much better with words than she was. She thought back to the message she left with shame.

"We're…" CC began. "We're seeing where this goes."

Fran grinned with a wink and clapped her hands together, happy with the explanation. "Well, come on, come on, let's eat breakfast. I'm famished!"

Niles sat at the other end of the table with CC to his right, enjoying an admittedly room-temperature breakfast. The kids, mostly uninterested in the goings-on of the adults, began blabbering away about something—Christmas, CC assumed—and Fran and Maxwell dutifully listened. This gave CC the freedom to explore how far she could drift her hand up Niles's thigh before he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

When breakfast ended, the children ran off to wait near the tree to open their presents while Fran and Max urged Niles and CC to come open presents with them. Torn between his desire to do the dishes and Miss Babcock, Niles hesitated but knew that the holiday tradition meant a lot to the Sheffield clan. With a slightly uttered sigh, he slipped his arm around CC's waist and guided her to the living room.

CC's interest in the holiday ended quickly after she opened her gift from the Sheffield's—an intricate brooch that Maxwell clearly didn't remember he'd given her for Christmas two years ago—so she sat idly by, shifting it from hand to hand, while the rest of the family opened their presents and showed various representations of elation and surprise. Niles sat next to her, with a bigger but still small pile of presents, and CC felt her heart sink at the thought that she hadn't gotten him anything. They usually exchanged small (often gag) presents at the holidays, but with the chaos of her life, she'd forgotten and it appeared so had he.

Meanwhile, Niles found himself preoccupied with the same thoughts. Of course, any present he might have purchased even a week ago wouldn't be any good now, so that thought offered him some solace. With a smile, he thought of an alternative.

As Fran broke the sound barrier over a dress that appeared to be made of feathers, Niles leaned over to her ear. "Your present is upstairs," he said softly in her ear, purposely brushing his lips against her skin as he leaned back.

CC looked at him a little concernedly even as her skin flushed from his contact. "I didn't get you anything," she told him, biting her lip. Good showing, Babcock, she told herself silently.

Niles slid his hand into hers and smiled when she automatically linked their fingers and squeezed his hand. "Yes, you did."

Cocking an eyebrow, she quipped, "Niles, that's very sweet, but I know you. You'd be more excited if I'd bought you a pack of Cubans than if I were sitting here holding your hand."

"You don't know me that well," he said coolly, feigning offense. After a few beats, though, he added, "Though if you _do_ want to get me a box, I wouldn't object."

CC laughed and nudged his shoulder, leaning against him when she was done. She watched Chester play with his chew toy that Fran had given him—her dog received more thoughtful presents than she did, she reflected glumly—and waited for this touching family scene to be over so she could be alone with Niles.

Finally, the last present had been opened and the family was sufficiently distracted by their own lots. Niles pat her knee before standing up and announcing he was going to do the dishes.

"I think I'll help him," CC said before realizing no one was listening. She slipped off and followed him into the kitchen. Her shoulders dropped when she saw him set a pile of pants into the sink. "Oh. You're actually doing dishes?"

"You're actually helping?" Niles replied. CC laughed and shook her head.

"I want my present," CC whined, leaning across the counter.

Niles glanced over, got a good view down her sweater, and made an executive decision. He held up a finger and pulled open the dishwasher. At warp speed, he collected all of the dishes from the dining room and piled them in, tossing the pots and pans in soon after. Dishwashing fluid was added, the washer locked, the power on. A rhythmic swishing sound filled the kitchen as Niles rounded the island and gathered CC in his arms, fusing his lips to hers.

The feel of her lips sliding against his, the taste of her tongue, the freedom to explore all of these things—Niles doubted he'd ever get over it. What utter _relief_ it was to be with her without the cloud of doubt hovering over them: doubt if she wanted it, doubt if he wanted it, doubt if it would ever happen. And the fact that she had made the decision to be with him before she'd ever heard that her father had figured everything out made his heart sing. This woman, this irritating, frustrating, fiery, wonderful woman, had chosen him, in her first decision made strictly for herself.

Niles ended the kiss, to CC's murmured protest—at which Niles's heart began its symphony—and asked, his voice low, "Would you like your present here, or upstairs, or in the pantry, or…"

CC smiled wickedly, realizing what her Christmas present actually was. "Upstairs. I just remembered that I do, in fact, have something for you, too."

"Is it cigars? Because I'll happily take them right he—" She cut off the rest of his sentence by grabbing his arm and dragging him up the back staircase.


	8. 8

[A/N: And so we have reached the final chapter of this silly little story that came to mean so much to me. Thank you, thank you so much for the kind reviews. You all make me smile. But overall, I dedicate this story to Kate, one of my best friends. This past year was probably the hardest of my life, and when I needed a friend, she was there for me. It might seem like a small act, but it isn't, and she's honestly one of the most kind-hearted and funniest people I know. I'm forever grateful for her presence in my life-not just the amazingly fantastic reviews she leaves on my work. So go read her stuff (Kate811).]

8.

_one year later_

"Bloody Christian feast," Niles muttered to himself as he tilted open the oven to check on the ham. "_Well, yes, Niles, we _could_ order a honey-baked ham_," Niles continued, mimicking his employer's voice as he remained in front of the stove, stirring the carrots he was caramelizing, "_but where's the fun in that, old man?_"

He felt two arms slide around him and even more delightfully felt the hard bump of her stomach against his back. "Don't tell me you're going senile already, lover," CC said in his ear.

Niles smiled and closed his eyes in pleasure as CC kissed the back of his neck. "No, baby, my mind's not gone soft yet."

"Oh, your mind can go soft," CC told him, turning him around to give him a kiss. "But nothing else can."

Niles ran an appreciative hand down her curves made more voluptuous by pregnancy. "With you around, that's impossible." He grasped her hand and twirled her in front of him, her plum-colored wrap dress highlighting her curves and her 6-month pregnant belly. "You look beautiful, love."

"You look terrible," CC returned, fixing his hair. "Busy morning?"

"It's all right. I just bloody hate feasts," Niles told her.

"You could quit and depend on your sugar mama," CC reminded him, half-jokingly.

Niles looked at her mock-sternly and ignored the comment, worried that it would be too tempting an offer at a time like this. He pressed a soft hand to her protruding stomach, instantly distracted and filled with excitement. "Is your morning going well?"

"It would have been fine if _someone_ hadn't woken me up when he left," CC told him, pouting her lips out attractively. Niles took the bait and leaned in, giving her a lingering kiss.

"I knew that would happen, which is why I offered to sleep here since I had to wake up so early."

"Not again," CC said severely.

Niles laughed, remembering the night before Thanksgiving when he had insisted that he sleep in his old room at the Sheffield's so that CC could enjoy a full night's rest, which she'd struggled to do in the first few months of her pregnancy. He'd applauded himself for being so considerate until he'd received a call at 3am from an extremely angry CC, claiming that his absence prevented her from falling asleep. Niles hadn't minded, though; he'd relished in her dependence on him even before they'd found out she was pregnant, so he happily travelled back to her penthouse and had climbed into bed with her.

One of the kitchen timers he'd set up went off, so Niles turned to attend to it while CC inspected the buzzing from her purse. Niles looked over interestedly as CC answered her phone, smiling when he saw CC place her left hand absently on her belly.

"Hi, Noel…no, I haven't opened it yet," CC said. A familiar exasperated expression came over her face as she stood up straighter. "Well, pardon me, but I've been a little busy…yes, yes, fine, I'll open it. It might be in my purse…what? Fine…yeah, Merry Christmas…bye." CC hung up her cell phone and rolled her eyes, rustling through her large black bag.

"Your brother?" Niles guessed, stirring the glaze for the ham.

"He wants me to open the Christmas card he sent me," CC said, rolling her eyes. "Ah, here it is!" She unearthed it from her bag, a little creased and worse for the wear.

Niles turned back to his busy stovetop, momentarily placated at his progress. CC's sudden burst into laughter startled him and he turned back around to face her.

"Oh my _God_, this is wonderful," CC said, the torn envelope on the counter and a photo Christmas card in her hand. "This is the best thing I've ever received in the mail."

"There's something written on the back," Niles said, motioning to it.

CC turned it around and began laughing again in earnest. Niles grinned at the rich, open sound of it. He hadn't heard enough of it over the years, but the past year it had resurfaced wonderfully. She laughed until she grimaced a little bit. "Now I have to pee."

"My debutante," Niles remarked, walking around the island and standing next to her. She showed him the card and waited for his reaction. "Is that…?"

"Yes!" CC said gleefully, looking again at the picture of Noel, Andrew, and a chocolate Labrador between them on a park bench. Their arms draped over each other's on the back of the bench, and they smiled happily, their heads tilted slightly towards each other. In red and green script, _Happy Holidays from Noel, Andrew, and Rosie_ took up the bottom portion of the picture. CC flipped the card around so he could read Noel's note on the back: _I sent one to Mummy, too. Cheers! xo Noel_.

Niles laughed and shook his head. "Did you know about Andrew?"

"No! But you know, he said something that one day we had lunch," CC said thoughtfully, tapping the picture against her chin. "Something about it not being ideal for both of us but _especially_ for him. I didn't ask what he meant."

"Your mother will love it," Niles said, placing his hand on her waist and caressing it gently.

"I can't _wait_," CC said, her face beaming. She leaned over and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. "But your daughter just kicked my bladder and now I _really_ have to pee." She laughed at the dreamy look he got on his face whenever she said _your daughter_ to him and squeezed his arm before hurrying off to the restroom.

When she was finished, CC turned left and headed into the living room, once again greeting the Sheffield's whom she'd bypassed in search of her lover in the kitchen. The detritus of Christmas wrapping paper and bows on the floor told CC that they'd already opened presents.

"The kids insisted," Fran blurted out, at which point all three children protested loudly that, in fact, their stepmother had wheedled them into opening gifts without CC present. Fran shushed them, motioning to the fourth and newest Sheffield child, sleeping soundly in her arms.

CC laughed and smiled graciously as Maxwell stood up, offering her the oversized armchair near the fire. "I understand. Did you at least wait to open the presents I got for you all?"

This time, they all looked sheepish, and it was Maxwell who spoke. "I _did _ask them to wait, CC. Er…I love the new suit, though."

"You're welcome," CC said, repeating the sentiment when the rest of the Sheffields gushed over the gifts she'd given them.

"Now it's your turn!" Maggie said; she and Grace stood with a pile of gifts and presented them to her.

In true Jewish superstitious tradition, CC received nothing for the baby from any of them, but most of the presents reflected her current state anyhow. The children had purchased her a "mommy pampering day" at her favorite spa; the gift touched her, knowing how much it likely cost and knowing, somehow, that the children would have insisted on using their allowance and not taken extra from their parents. Maxwell presented her with a sumptuous pair of ergonomic slippers, and Fran spent five minutes exhorting how much the same slippers had helped her through the last trimester of her own pregnancy when the back pain became too much.

Niles, who had entered the room just as CC had opened the envelope containing the spa gift certificate, rubbed CC's back lightly as she kicked off her black flats and slid her feet into the slippers. "Finally, I can stop with the foot massages."

CC arched her eyebrow and gave Niles such a withering look that he actually shrank a little in size.

"Would-would you like me to give you one now?" he asked nervously. CC chuckled and swatted at his knee, reaching for a large, slightly heavy box.

"It's from both of us," Fran said excitedly, bouncing as much as the infant would allow in her seat.

Curiously, CC ripped open the paper and pulled the top off of a plain white box. Inside, in a heavy slate metal frame, a strangely familiar toddler smiled at her from an 8x10 photograph. She knew those eyes and that lopsided smile…

"Oh my _God_," CC said, a laugh bubbling in her throat even as tears prickled near the backs of her eyes. "Is this you?" CC turned to Niles, who blushed slightly in embarrassment. What a chubby baby he'd been.

"I wrote to your parents, old man," Max told him, clearly proud of his thoughtfulness. "They were only too happy to send this along."

"Oh, I bet they were," Niles replied. "There's something below it, love,"

CC carefully lifted the frame out of the box and upon seeing what lay below it, she immediately tried to cover it back up again. Niles, too swift for her, pulled the frame from her grasp and gawked at the framed picture below his own. In an oversized bow and with an awkward but endearing smile on her face was a two-year-old CC Babcock, wearing—what else?—a small strand of pearls around her neck.

She looked over at Niles worriedly, anticipating the zingers heading her way, and blinked a few times, surprised to see a look of utter adoration on his face.

"I don't know what happened, Babcock, but you were the most beautiful child," Niles told her.

"And who knew that you never outgrew your baby fat?" she replied.

"Now if you _wanted_ to put these pictures above a place where a baby might sleep in a room that might belong to a baby, you could," Fran told her, sidestepping any possible consequences by spitting three times at her feet. Niles grimaced at the thought of mopping it up, but CC only smiled, already imagining the design in her guest room-turned-nursery.

"Thank you," CC said genuinely, looking back at Niles's picture. She was utterly elated at the idea of having a daughter, and so looked forward to cultivating a relationship with her so unlike the one her mother had with her, but still, seeing Niles as a toddler made her want a little boy who looked just like his daddy.

They passed the frames around carefully so that the family could see, and Niles took advantage of momentarily having the attention away from them. He squeezed CC's knee and said softly, "I hope our daughter looks just like you."

"Even if she'll grow up with this face?" CC asked, pointing to her chin.

"Especially if she does," Niles said, kissing her cheek.

"Liar," CC whispered.

CC opened her remaining presents—several surprisingly pretty maternity dresses—and basked in the excitement of a pile of presents, just for her. Had she been more aware, she likely would have noticed the family's sudden shift, how Fran stood and left the room to place the baby in his crib, how the children began gathering the wrapping paper scraps and shoving them into a large garbage bag over near the piano, how Maxwell kept gesturing emphatically for his family to leave, how Fran returned and plopped herself down on the piano bench, staring at Niles and CC.

Niles gulped, watching CC hold up a soft cotton dress, and pulled a small box from his pocket. "You still have to open my present, CC."

If she noticed the nervousness in his voice, she didn't show it. "And you have to open mine! I left some at home, though. Best not to open them in public."

At that, Niles's nerves disappeared. That he had a place with CC, that she considered it home, reminded him of how damned lucky he was. He remembered how, barely over a year ago, he'd thought that this would never have been possible, and now it was not only possible, but they had created something that would forever link them to one another: a beautiful baby (if the sonograms were any indication, and both were adamant that they were).

"Here you go, baby," Niles said, handing her the box.

CC's smiled gleamed at him as she took the box and ripped the paper off of it. "Ooh," she said excitedly as she revealed a square velvet box. She opened the lid, expecting earrings or a bracelet, and gasped when she saw an emerald-cut diamond solitaire on a platinum band. The part of her brain capable of processing thought couldn't help but admire the cut and quality of the diamond, the sheen of the band.

She looked over at Niles and found him on one knee in front of the chair. He carefully took the box from her hand and balanced it on her legs so that he could hold both of her hands.

"CC," he said. He looked into her eyes, and CC felt, again, a powerful wave of love wash over her. She'd thought that surely, over time, this look he gave her would diminish in effect—not that it would stop affecting her, of course, but maybe that she'd just get used to it or (even worse) that he'd stop sending that look her way. But to her surprise and intense happiness, it hadn't. He looked at her like that, several times a day, and each time, she bathed in it, swathed in it, and reveled in it. He looked at her like he was the luckiest man in the world, like he loved her so much that he couldn't keep it all to himself: he _had_ to share it with her.

"Yes," CC answered with a whisper, even though he hadn't even asked a question. Yes, she would marry him; yes, she promised to love him forever; yes, she would never, ever get tired of him looking at her like she was the center of his universe, as long as he understood that he was the center of hers, too.

"Marry me?" Niles asked, grinning at her.

"Yes!" she said, squeezing his hands before he let go so that he could slide the ring onto her finger. Distantly, she heard the Sheffields cheer and run back into the living room to shower their congratulations upon them, but CC ignored them as she almost always did and held onto Niles until the overwhelming current of emotion passed over her.

Niles clutched her in return, knowing she didn't want the others to see her with tears in her eyes, and pressed kisses to her neck and whispered in her ear until she began to laugh. With somewhat of a surprise, Niles watched as CC accepted a hug from Fran. His fiancée—his _fiancée_!—gave Fran a quick squeeze and the former nanny rubbed CC's back warmly, telling her how happy she was for her.

"Thank you," CC said, smiling. The friendship she'd forged with Fran had been one of the many pleasant changes in her life, and her impending motherhood, along with Fran's new motherhood, only brought them closer.

The biggest—and best—surprise the past year had brought her was how effortlessly her life with Niles had begun and continued. Their relationship required work, of course, as any did, but whatever false starts or awkward phases CC might have worried about didn't occur at all. She supposed the years of knowing each other beforehand helped. Whatever it was, the potentially jarring jolt she'd had from a life of solitary loneliness to one of shared happiness had instead been a smooth road.

Now, when CC placed her newly bejeweled left hand on her belly and reached up to brush Niles's hair back into place and Niles beamed at her, his face one of pure, undiluted happiness, she took a steadying breath and exhaled into what she knew was her happy place.


End file.
